After gathering our gloves, toques and coats, we left at about 10:15 for the 20 (or so) minute drive to River Safaris in Homosassa Springs. The business is housed in a very unique looking building...very funky. After getting the truck parked in the large lot behind the building, we headed in to register and pay for our tour. We had been hoping for another couple to want to take the longer 2 hour, 4-person minimum tour but there had been no takers so we took the 1 ½ hour trip out through the canals and islands...but not quite all the way out to the Gulf. There are lots of island along the coastline.
One of the first things we saw was a small island with a lighthouse on it and a bunch of spider monkeys...
Once we were through the populated areas of the canal...well...away we went! Too much fun! He sped along whizzing back and forth navigating through the canals. I felt like I was on a ride in an amusement park...Steve thinks he was trying to scare the S*?T out of us! At one point he hit bottom...that was a little scary. The air boats don’t steer like a regular boat.....they skid in the turns. As you can see in the pictures it felt like we were heading for shore every time he turned and at times we were skimming over the mud....holy crap I hope he knows what he’s doing!! He later explained to us that the tide seemed unusually low today.
He stopped a couple of times along the way to give a bit of a description of the area and answer our questions.
Then we saw some dolphins...in this picture they are scaring up the fish...at first I thought they were fighting...
Unfortunately before we knew it, we were heading back in...that had been a quick hour and a half! We had had a great time...well worth the $35 each that it cost!!
After checking out the gift shop and taking a few more pictures, we were off. The area we are in is Historic Homosassa so we drove a little further down the road to check it out. Not much really there...so we turned around and went back to an area we had driven through on the way to the tour this morning. We stopped at the Old Sugar Mill ruins and took pictures...
We made a few stops on the way home and by the time we were back, it was late afternoon...that had been a fast day! We decided to sit outside and enjoy happy hour in the sunshine. A few minutes later, our neighbours returned home and came over to introduce themselves and we invited them to join us. Fred went in to mix drinks while Bettyann set up chairs. We had a nice visit with them...they are fellow Canadians from Port Perry, Ontario and winter down here in their motorhome. Both are “techies” and teach computer classes here at the park. He retired about 7 years ago after 30 odd years working for IBM Canada and she worked in some sort of network support.
Before we knew it the sun had gone down behind the trees and it was getting pretty darn chilly out so we called it an evening and headed inside. After dinner, we settled into our usual evening in front of the fireplace watching TV.
What a great day...your ride sure looked like FUN!!
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