Fl. Circumnavigation Trip Pics
 

Here's a slide show of a recently-completed trip around the state with an old buddy of mine from Ky. that I grew up with. Postponed the trip for about a month due to the wet/cold/windy spring. Some friends advised that I'd better get the hell out of the everglades by mid-April to avoid a bug-fest! Of course we ended up STARTING in mid-April, hoping the cold weather would also delay the bugs and give us a chance to do some fishing there. Naturally it rained a couple days before we got there, and the bugs in the 'glades were fierce! Did have great trip though, with tailwinds most of the trip! Met up with cdavis and Red18 over at Cayo Costa and ran up to Don Pedro Island to see Island Trader's awesome SeaCraft 21 restoration project! Then ran down to Key Largo, where we got to spend some time with Skip and Carla, and even got to see Carla's folks!

Ran 683 miles in about 2 weeks. Burned 156.9 gallons of gas for an average on 4.35 mpg. Burned about 1.5 gal of oil, and the 'ol E-Tec never missed a beat! Overall it was a terrific trip - good weather, good food, and a chance to see some great people!

Most of the pics were taken by buddy Harry, although I managed a few lucky shots. Slide show is best viewed on full screen; moving cursor over screen will bring up control buttons. Sometimes it will show a black screen, but the slides are there, so you might have to back up, go to grid or rerun it if that happens. Enjoy! Denny

http://s188.photobucket.com/albums/z...view=slideshow

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Nice pics. Sounds like you had a fun trip. I ate at the Jupiter Crab Shack a month ago. Good spot.

I just ran a 60' from Merritt Island to Boston. It was about 1200 miles, 7 days running and 3,000 gallons of diesel. I ran the boat for 10 hours a day for the entire 7 days. I slept for a full day when I got home.

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Great Trip! Great Pictures!

When the 21 is done we will take that trip in the reverse order of what you and Harry did.

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Wow, awesome trip. :cool: I would love to make that trip one day.

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Glad you two had a good time despite the snotty weather we had on Saturday. It was great to meet all of you and see your 3 different models of SeaCrafts. I love my center console but I sure do see the benefits of a closed bow. That ride back across the harbor when I left Terry's was a little nasty. Look forward to seein' ya'll again.

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If we can just get Skip to get going and finish his 21, we could make it a threesome! :D Denny

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That was great! Thanks

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Awesome trip! Very inspiring!

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That was great looking at those while having my Sat morning coffee. The pictures of Key Largo brought back memories of a nice sunset dinner Lisa and I had there a couple years ago. One of these days we will go back!

strick

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Great Trip review & Pictures! Thanks for sharing Denny!

BTW: Give me my charts back so I can go [img]/forum/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

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denny, how do you like the sirius/xm weather?? im thinking of putting it on my 23 when its done.

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That looks like a pretty cool trip. I didn't know you could do anything but fish off a seacraft. Now you have me planning next years vacation a little differently.

Great pics of what looks like a great time.

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The weather stuff is great and the weather radar was nice to have on the trip. I've been surprised by wrong VHF weather forecast on some Bahama trips (I sometimes think they're made by the chamber of commerce folks!), so it's nice to have a "second opinion". I have the "Fisherman" subscription which gives wave heights, but the only problem is the categories are in 3' increments! Would be better to have 1 or 2' increments. The "Sailor" package which gives wind speed and direction info might actually be more useful. If I know that, I can pretty well figure out what the waves are gonna be like! Harry has XM weather "Master Mariner" package on his old Garmin 376c for motorcycle use, and it has everything on it, so between the two we were well covered. As far as the radio part, I don't even have am/fm/cd radio on the boat as that's never been a big priority for me; I enjoy peace and quiet when I'm on the boat, and I've never even HEARD of most of the stuff on XM! The Elvis, Willie Nelson, Outlaw Country, Folk music and the 60's & 70's channels are ok, but you can have the rest of it. Will probably not renew the radio part when it comes due in 3 months. I already had the Soundock, we had an inverter to recharge it, and my I-pod has FM radio and all the tunes I want on it, so that's good enough for me.

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Check your PM's!

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Here I am living vicariously through a maturing engineer's lens...:D
Thanks for sharing your most excellent trip w/ the gang. Very nice shots. Very cool that you could hook up with so many forum folks :cool:

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CSC folks sure are fun to be around. Enjoyed spending some time with you. A great trip and great slide show.

Which ever one of you took the pick of my 25 running gets the prize. That's about the best shot of a 25 I've ever seen (ok, so maybe I'm just a little biased). I want to blow that one up and hang it on my wall.

Thanks again.

Connor

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I had to pause the slideshow and manually go through all of those. The slideshow was going too fast. :D

That looks like a great trip! Those are some wicked shots!

Up until now, I thought I was the only one NOT using the Seafari, only for fishing ... good to see :D

Thanks for sharing
Brandon

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That may be true for a CC, but it's only one of MANY things you can do with a Seafari!

As I've been telling folks for years, it is by far the most versatile of all the SeaCraft models! The big cockpit makes it a great dive and cruising boat, the cabin is very comfortable for sleeping and provides lots of storage room, the hatch on the sloping surface makes a great wind scoop for good ventilation, and it's nice to have that windshield (which OPENS, something I haven't found on ANY new boat in this class!), solid deck and transom when the seas kick up! Add the head and galley seat with sink, running water, stove, shower & 6 gal. water tank, and you have all the comforts of home! http://s188.photobucket.com/albums/z...t=e00cb287.pbw

http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z...alleyinuse.jpg

Not that I'm biased, you understand! :D Denny

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Great Shot, I can see you did't make your Bed http://forums.floridasportsman.com/s...miley/fish.gif

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Dang Denny,
You make Conrad Hilton look like a street urchin. :D

Couple more questions:
1. What do you use your fore cuddy storage locker for, and does it have a liner or just the hull there?

2. Are those new stays on your bimini at the windshield?

That stack of cushions gave me a sudden urge to go to make some flapjacks...

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Capt. Chuck, looks like he makes a mean omlette though!!! Very nice trip Denny, thanks for sharing!!!

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AWESOME DENNY!
What a trip, glad you had fun!

This will put me into turbo mode on the 27.. :eek:

BTW: There is no mention if some of that fine Kentucky
Bourbon was consumed on this trip?? ;) :)

See ya, Ken

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all i have to say is

thank you

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Bushwacker has his seafari set up to BE the Hilton, you can't beat it. My 20 Seafari was a stripped out dive boat, two big coolers for fish and seats, storage for 10 tanks, add 3-4 divers, other gear, 150 lbs of ice, 16 gallons of extra gas and you are set to dive 30-40 miles offshore, which we did about 20 weekends a year off Bayport. Absolutely the best 20 ft dive boat in existence.(and no, it did not self bail with that load) Want to go camping in the Bahamas with the wife? Just strip out the tanks, load the cooking/sleeping stuff and go. That boat was the prototype for my "perfect" boat, a 25 Seafari.

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Hey Gillie,

That Conrad Hilton crack is a good one!! Never heard that before!

1. My anchor locker does have a fiberglass gel-coated bottom in it. It's about 5-6" above the bunks. If you pull the bulkhead, there is an access hole for the bow eye in vertical surface aft of the shelf. I keep a lot of stuff in there: 300' of 7/16" anchor line and 20' of chain, a big 1M candlepower 12V spotlight, spare oil for hydraulic steering, and the barbeque grill, when it's not in rod holder. I may cram other stuff in there if there's room when I need the bunk space! The grill can be a problem because it gets in way of anchor line, so I only put it up there when anchored for the night when I need to clear out some room in the cabin. I had to put a mesh screen (an old nylon mesh dive gear bag) over the opening to keep the line/chain from falling out onto bunk after I moved the hawse pipe aft to center it over the anchor locker. It just hooks over some screws I put into fwd side of bulkhead.

2. I've had those side supports on the Bimini for years. Most Bimini's are pretty wimbly affairs, but mine is rock solid with those supports, and makes a great handhold when going around the side to front deck! The supports were just made from some short pieces of tubing and bimini top fittings. I posted some pictures of it some time back, but here they are again.
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z...FBraces004.jpg
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z...FBraces002.jpg
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z...FBraces003.jpg

You'll notice I also braced the radio antenna off windshield with some turnbuckles. A lot of guys just cantilever it off the gunnel, but I'm sort of a "belt & suspenders" type . . . if you can easily support it, why not?!! What I did was slip a piece of schedule 40 PVC over the antenna, with a wood block and a couple of pad eyes attached to it with some fg tape and epoxy. The wood block rests against the outside of bimini frame, and the turnbuckles can be adjusted to pull it tight against the frame which is held away from the windshield by the bimini supports mentioned above. I used a couple of fast-pins thru the turnbuckle ends into the pad eyes, so they can be quickly pulled to lower antenna. I also replaced the screws in the bimini supports with fast-pins, so I can quickly lower the top when coming up to a low bridge, etc. The PVC pipe support works well because it's a "soft" support for the antenna which allows it to move around some inside the pipe but limits the motion. Sometimes if you try to support something too rigidly, you'll create a "hardpoint" stress concentration and cause it to crack at the support, creating the very problem you're trying to avoid! In other words, "Better" can be the enemy of "Good Enough" if you're not carefull! :eek: Denny

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Oh yea, Harry didn't disappoint . . . showed up with a bottle of 15 year old Pappy Van Winkle Family Reserve! Definitely fine stuff! It's hard to find because the Ky. natives know about it, so it sells out immediately whenever they release a batch of it. Harry found a couple of bottles up in Indiana during a bike trip and bought both of them! Was only 107 proof this year vs. 110 proof last year! :eek: (It varies from batch to batch; they never know exactly how it'll turn out!) We consumed a tolerable amount of it up at Terry's and at Skip's - it does have a kick to it! Still have a little left. I tried to talk Harry into swinging by Area 442 with it on his way home, but I think he was afraid you'd put him to work! :D I'm saving it for our next get-together . . . maybe mini-season in the Keys this year?! Denny

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Denny,
Thanks for taking the time to put on the show!

Big smiles everywhere. You only burned how much oil? :o

Did you have a cheeseburger @ Cabbage Key. How pretty. I`ve been told the same story. He has a small concrete block studio down in K.W. where he records. No signage. If cars are there so is Jimmy.

The water in the locks looked a tad questionable, but not the steaks on the grill. The Seafari is a great design and certainly multi-purpose, but I shouldn`t be walking around on small places. I have an old bimini frame that came to me a little bent,if someone wants to make forward stanchions like yours, they can have it.

Nice pics,
GFS

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What an awesome trip!!! Thanks for all the photos. Now, you should plan a trip up the ICW and come see us Carolina and Virginia boys! :D Might as well continue up north to see some of the New England guys as well. Can you imagine the post? "Met all the east coast CSC nuts, uh, enthusiasts by water!" :cool: Your SC is beautiful!!!

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Thanks for all the kind words guys! It was indeed a great trip and we had fun visiting with all the CSC folks. Haven't made any plans for next spring yet, but it would be fun to haul it up to Edenton and explore the Albemarle Sound and maybe even the Chesapeake Bay area! Denny

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Great shots and details Denny! Seeing that 25 next to yours is very cool! Glad to hear and see it was a good time. Thank you.

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awesome slide show denny!!

One question: what is the cost (if any) for transiting the locks across the state?

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I will answer that question....your tax payer dollars at work ZERO.

You can boat around the entire eastern part of the United States, and go through 50+ locks and the only thing it will cost you is your time.

So sometimes we do get some benefit, but for how much longer is anybody's guess. [img]/forum/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

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Thanks so much for the pictures and the excellent narrative. The trip brought back memories, my father and I did a similar trip except we started in Sarasota, headed south to Key West,and then up the east coast & through the ditch. We had perfect weather, I think it was March of 2003. We were in a 29' Sea Ray with twin 350mpi I/O's that never missed a beat. Not a great boat, but certainly a great trip. Thanks again, that really makes me want to do it again!
-Jeff

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That was great!
Thanks for sharing, hopefully someday I can make the trip around as well.
Is spring the best time to try this?

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I think winter or early spring is generally the best for the stretch from Sanibel to Flamingo because of the bug factor. However that's all open relatively shallow water so 20-25 kt winds from S, SW or W will create steep breaking waves pretty quick. You don't want to be caught out there in a 20' boat in those conditions! This year we had several cold fronts come through in March and early April, so we delayed trip to start in mid-April and then ran into lot's of bugs! Moral is that you can't have everything perfect! Decided I'd rather put up with a few bugs than nasty weather and unsafe boating conditions!

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Quite a trip, we are just in the testing stage and couldn't anything that long but Seafari is perfect for it.

We were just down at Cayo last weekend trying out my sleeping quarters, they worked great actually but 2 nights is max.
Did get a bit buggy anywhere close to land as there was literally no wind, we stayed the first night inside Cayo but outside the anchorage - looking for enough air to at least blow out a candle LOL. Next night was at Little Redfish Pass - still no wind, I mean 0.
Will have to hook up with the other guys down there next time, Susan wants to stay at Cabbage Key maybe.
We put in at Venice and ran down and it was an easy ride both car and boat to BG, between fishing Wed. -117mi and that trip 138 I put some mileage on too.
For any Merc owners - on the fishing trip in dead flat water I got 2.65mpg - 117/44gal - 45 gal tank [img]/forum/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

and about 2.4mpg on the Cayo trip -