Lee wanted to rent one of the Wilderness RV Resort's pontoon boats and spend a day on the Silver River. We had set up a rental before, but cancelled due to poor weather. And looking at the weather for the upcoming week, it looked like today, Saturday, would be our best option, although we had hoped to do it on a weekday when the river would be less crowded.
The cheaper of the two pontoon boats is $100 for the day including gas. It's certainly not in the best shape, and it only has three seats plus a plastic chair, so taking your own chairs is recommended. But it's a pretty good deal when splitting the cost.
We planned on leaving at 10:00, but that turned into 11:00 as we waited for it to warm up a bit, and the ladies needed to finish their coffee time. We stopped by the office to pay and sign a rental form. They didn't give us any instruction or do a boat "check out", but just handed us a key and sent us on our way. Fortunately, both Lee and I have some experience with boats (Lee far more than me), and we knew where we were going.
The quiet motor started on the first try, and some nice folks helped us untie and push off. Edie and I started taking pictures right away ...
as a juvenile Little Blue Heron had snatched a small bass.
We left the campground and docking area .....
and headed up the Ocklawaha River passing under the tall U.S. 40 bridge.
It's a short ride to the convergence of the Silver and Ocklawaha Rivers. A left keeps you going upriver on the Ocklawaha, while going straight takes you up the Silver River and into the Silver River State Park.
Paddlers and other motorboats followed us up the Silver.
It wasn't long before we saw our first alligator.
Since Edie didn't come with us when we paddled the river a couple weeks ago, we were hoping to be able to show her some of the wild Rhesus monkeys that have been roaming the forests of the Silver River for years, and it didn't take long to find a large troop.
Here's a video of some squabbles and activity.
With other boaters, we sat a long time and watched them feed and interact.
I have written about how the monkeys got here several times, and here is a quote from a December 2015 article in the Orlando Sentinal that quickly explains it.
"The monkeys were brought to Silver Springs State Park by Colonel Tooey in the 1930s. Tooey owned a river-cruise tourist attraction and thought the monkeys would be a defining trait of the ride. However, after purchasing the monkeys from a wildlife dealer out of New York and placing them on an island at Devil's Elbow on the Silver River, they promptly swam across the water and thrived in nearby woods, a state historical timeline shows."
The article goes on to explain that the monkeys are starting to spread, after there was an outcry to stop trapping them, and there have been sightings as far south as The Villages.
At any rate, the monkeys are the highlight for most folks on the river, and the question we hear most often is "Have you seen the monkeys?" followed by "Where?"
As usual, I took lots of monkey pictures. Here are some of my favorites from this first encounter of the day.
Lee maneuvered the boat to keep us out of other peoples' way and so we could get these wonderful photos, but I had boat duty most of the day. I didn't take as many photos of the usual water birds (herons, egrets, ibis, grebes, anhingas, cormorants, moorhens, etc.) as I usually do on this stretch of river, but I still had quite a few pics.
Here's a Limpkin - we've seen more of them on the Silver River than anywhere else we've been.
And this was a pretty large alligator, the biggest one we saw at what looked like at least ten feet.
It's not uncommon to see a Sea Eagle inflatable kayak on this river.
The entire river is idle speed and a no-wake zone, so it takes a long time, especially with stops for wildlife watching, to do the whole thing. Eventually, we made it up to the head springs, Silver Springs, where the river originates.
Linda stuck the GoPro in the water as we toured the deep, clear springs.
At about the thirty-second mark of the video, you can see three statues that are leftover props from the 1960s "I SPY" TV series.
We headed back out of the springs on this gorgeous day with temps in the upper 70s.
We passed a couple of the famous glass-bottom boats as we went downriver.
Here's another gator sharing a log with a turtle.
On the way, Lee spotted some more monkeys. Most of them stayed back in the woods, and I didn't take any photos of that group.
We saw some Wood Ducks, what I consider the prettiest duck in the U.S. They were shaded and moving, but I got enough of a photo to show the male's beautiful colors.
Shortly after that, we came upon another troop of monkeys. This little one kept brushing the Spanish Moss out of the way, in order to see us better.
I took several shots, but this was Linda's favorite of the bunch.
We ended up seeing five groups of monkeys on the day. Since there are only four troops, we're pretty sure the first and fifth group were the same.
We had to have the pontoon back before 5:00, so our return trip down river was a bit faster. The river was much lower and clearer than when we paddled it earlier in the month, and the current was quite a bit stronger. We made it back in plenty of time.
So that's it for another wonderful day on the Silver River. Thanks for coming along. :)
The weather looks so perfect! Wonderful pics of the cute monkeys - I like Linda's favorite the best too :-) I think that's the biggest turtle I've seen, unless the alligator was small.
Posted by: Jodee Gravel on the road in Roswell, NM | Sunday, February 21, 2016 at 10:59 AM
Love the monkey photos and the underwater video. Thanks for taking us along.
Posted by: Larry and Sue Brown | Sunday, February 21, 2016 at 01:14 PM
Interestingly, I heard a monkey was spotted recently in Franklin County which is in the panhandle of Florida.
Posted by: Brenda | Sunday, February 21, 2016 at 07:47 PM
It's fun watching monkeys, I could do it for hours! It's nice that you were able to set your own pace as opposed to some of those guided tours we did in CR.
Steve & I will definitely have to put the Silver River on our "must do" list!
Posted by: Esther Lill | Wednesday, February 24, 2016 at 12:35 AM