Third Annual Safari in the Seafari!

[Bushwacker]

My ol' buddy from Ky. that I grew up with used to ride his bike down here every year for Bike Week, so 2 years ago we decided we might as well take a boat trip while he was here. Went down the St. Johns River from Sanford to Palatka and back, a trip of nearly 100 miles each way, spending 4 days and 3 nights on the boat. Last year we circumnavigated south Florida, running 700 miles in about 2 weeks, which I posted a slide show [http://s188.photobucket.com/albums/z...t=69122ef0.pbw [/url] on last year. When planning this year's trip we remembered the first trip on the St. Johns being so much fun that we decided to do it again, only go a little further and stay longer this time, so went for 5 days/4 nights on the water. I should add that the inspiration for both of these adventures was Carl and Jeanne Moesly! They made the both trips years ago in an I/O Seafari 20, except they ran the entire length of the St. Johns, AFTER running all the way up the ICW to Jacksonville from their home in Hobe Sound, between Jupiter & Stuart! That had to have been a trip of over 400 miles!

Last year we were able to meet up with a bunch of great CSC folks, and decided to try that again too. Brian (3rd Day) lives in St. Cloud which is right on the way to Sanford from NPB, so we decided to swing by there on the way. Enjoyed dinner with his nice family and got to check out his 27 Seamaster project! That is one HUGE and really solid 27' boat with an impressive amount of room in the cabin. It will be a great Bahamas cruiser! A friend of mine bought one of these boats new in 1967 and put a 454/Mercruiser in it, so we called him while I was there, and learned that he was able to install a low-rise manifold on it that allowed him to have a flush deck over the engine! I could tell Brian liked the idea of eliminating that big engine box!

At the Key Largo gathering I was showing Patty (Mrs. No Bones) some pictures of our previous trip and she freaked out at a picture of the Blackwater Inn in Astor, saying that's where she and Ken had gotten married! Thought it would be neat if Ken and Patty could meet us there for dinner one night. Turns out Patty had to work, but Ken brought his son along, so we enjoyed meeting Kenny and sharing some fine Ky. Bourbon with them. Unfortunately I forgot to get a picture of that event, so you'll have to trust me that it happened! Turns out that the owner of the Blackwater Inn is a good friend/client of Ken's, so we were treated like royalty! We made sure that waitress got a nice well-deserved tip!

Ended up running 309 miles and burned just under 70 gallons of gas for about 4.4 mpg overall, almost identical to last year's trip. Topped off the oil tank and it looks like we used about 2 qts of oil and the motor never missed a beat the entire trip. However the BRP tech's on the forum at etecownersgroup.com say you should be able to SEE the cavitation plate when you're up on plane, and mine is nowhere is sight! Took some pics, and it looks like motor needs to be raised at least 1-2 inches, but it's already as high as it can go without modifying bracket. Don Herman says he can easily add a couple more inches to the mount bracket, so next project is to see if I can wring a little more performance out of this rig!

Here's a slide show I put together of most recent St. John's trip. There's a pause button on lower left if you want to stop & start it. Enjoy! Denny