Fall Break in central FL

Fltcrew

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I sort of "hijacked" another member's post last week by saying we were trailering the boat to central FL for Fall Break this week and how excited I was to visit my "Happy Place".

Well today is day 3 and the weather has been chamber of commerce type and although we haven't had any full boating days, we have been out every day and evening so far.

The house we are renting is on a canal off of Little Lake Harris on the Harris Chain. Perfect location and setting. The boat is too big for their boathouse but its gets to stay in the water 15 feet from the "Florida room" where I am posting this and drinking my morning coffee.

Here are a few pictures from our trip so far. My dad is gone but my 73yo mother is in great health and she is with us. Great to have her to ourselves all week. My daughter thinks she hung the moon.
 

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Looks like you are having a GREAT fall break. We have a four day fall break wrapping up today. Unfortunately, ours has been spent in northern Michigan switching the cottage over from summer to winter activities. Not nearly as nice as yours, and our boat was put into winter storage a couple weeks ago.

Enjoy the amazing time with family, sun and water down in the Sunshine State. :)
 
Nice!! That is a neat area up there. Enjoy the time with family.
 
Boat looks great! Have a Blast down there!
 
We always like to cruise the Silver River up to the Silver Springs head in the state park.... There are 3 ways we have done that over the years but the weather was so nice Tuesday, we did the longest option which I have only done a couple of times because it is 80-100 miles round trip depending on where you start from.

Our AirBB rental is just about as far south as you can be on the chain so it was very close to 100 miles RT for us and we didn't even get started until 10:15

We shared the "tub" with a couple of manatees locking through the 2nd dam headed north, we saw many alligators of course, no bears or hogs going through the Ocala National Forest but we did see a small group or Reeses Monkeys on the Silver River.

We made it back to our favorite restaurant on the water around sunset and after dinner, had a nice 20mph cruise home under an almost full moon.
 

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Nice! Enjoy and thanks for sharing...
 
Looked like a nice trip! Did you have to stop to fill up???
 
Looks like a blast. I've considered towing our boat up there to tool around for a weekend.
 
Looked like a nice trip! Did you have to stop to fill up???

I didn't see any gas on my Navionics Map except for 2 places that were too close to be beneficial so I ran down to the hardware store and bought three 5 gal. containers, filled them up and strapped them to the rear platform. As it turned out, there were 2 places to get gas along the way that were neither on the map (as selling gas). I put 5 gallons in (which just about topped it off at that point) but it was nice to know it would be there on the way home. Instead, when we stopped at a park for my wife to use the bathroom, I dumped all 15 gallons in the boat and we had almost full fuel for the last 1/2 of the ride back.

So basically we used 20 gallons plus half a tank. (That is what we got back with). There was quite a bit of idling in there but that puts my MPG close to what I plan on in cruise..... 2.6
 
That sure did look like a great trip, worth every last drop of gas
 
We made it back home (western TN) from central FL... It was 1650 miles round trip and not a single problem pulling the R25. I had new tires installed and mounted a new spare on the trailer frame and new brakes for the trip. Fair amount of money but piece of mind and now I know what I have (I'm the 2nd owner).

The truck normally gets about 23 on the interstate with no load and I got 11.5 with the boat but it pulled great and rode well. I would not hesitate to drag it anywhere.

The worst part of the trip was a log jam across the river where it narrows 1/4 mile from the Silver River... we had just ran 40 miles so I was not going to turn around. I went over the submerged portion and we got stuck for a few minutes. Back and forth freed us but I bent 1 blade of my 4 blade prop really bad. I ended up putting the spare on the next morning. Also when I pulled the boat out on the last day.... I noticed the stainless bracket where you mount the transducer got bent down badly and broke a weld. Have to get that fixed if I can't straighten it myself.
 
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