River Ranch / Camp Mack

[JR IN JAX]

During Vacation, last week, we visited both River Ranch and Camp Mack, which is on Lake Kissimmee.

We decided to stay at the "Liars Lodge" at Camp Mack instead of River Ranch, initially due to no vacancy, but later because we liked the accomodations and having fuel available all week long [River Ranch's marina is closed during the week].

The Liars lodge is a class A facility [a year old] and is really nicely furnished. Camp Mack also has cabins [but we did not see them].
The short "no wake" canal to the larger "full speed" canal is shallow and muddy, due to the low water but is passable.

There are also several good restaurants within 10 miles [of Camp Mack] in Lake Wales too, but we did not find much food any where near River Ranch except their restaurant in the Marina or maybe in the Lodge.

We ran the northern part of the Lake Chains on our PWCs due to the low water levels and got outrun by some of the local airboaters.
The next day, I decided to risk my prop and ran some of the airboaters in the narrow rock sided canals.

I was able to hit 91 MPH in the narrow [50'] canals, even with a stiff crosswind and the airboaters seemed somewhat impressed. I don't know if there are airboats that are faster than that, but there wasn't any then.

We also ran through the locks and almost made it to Okechobee but had to turn around due to lack of fuel [River Ranch is closed during the week].

I think there might be fuel at Grape Harbor Marina but we did not try since it is on the lake side of the Lock.
JR

[Corona Mike]

J.R. there are quite a few airboats over there that run pretty good--very large amounts of nitrous!! That's about the only thing bad about River Ranch that it's closed during the 1st part of the week. How far down toward Ocachabee did you run? I beleave after either the 2nd or third lock there is at least two fish camps that have fuel, but they are a ways from Lake Kissimmee. Good running over there tough!

[JR IN JAX]

We went through three sets of locks including about a 15 mile detour through the old winding river channel. We did not see any fuel stops, just alligators.
The lock operators told us that there was no fuel until we got to Okechobee.
We have gone from Sanibel to Clewiston/Okechobee in one day, but did not have the fuel on board this time due to 5 passengers [6 total].

It appears that the main channel is being abandoned for some enviromental reasons and river traffic is being diverted to the old river channel. The old channel is very narrow/winding with sand bars on the inside of every turn.
We saw two boats back there and one was a game wardens air boat.

I think I hit an alligator in the main channel going home, since my depth sounder read 24 feet and we hit a big soft "bump".
We did not go back to see what it was, since there seems to be an abundance.

We also rescued a new Nitro bass boat that tried a shortcut through the grass right at the beginning of the channel going to Camp Mack on the way home. The two older gentlemen in it had hit a sand bar and completely beached it. We could not move it by hand, so we drug it out with a heavy 1/2" anchor line. I never realized my Pmax had that much torque with a 30" chopper II.

We hope to go back sometime during high water and explore all of the chain's canals that were to shallow to navigate this time.

We really had fun also exploring Tampa Bay, Dunedin, Caladessi, Homeymoon and Ancoylote Key on the 'skis.

The 'skis are almost as good as an airboat for shallow water but don't carry quite enough fuel [17 gallons at 7 MPG] for exploring areas with no fuel.
The only thing I miss about my Vector was it's shallow draft. My Grandsport spends a lot of time aground.
JR