Rhapsody on Lake Harris

A look at one of Central Florida’s peaceful getaways for small-boat sailors

Article and photos by Ken Van Camp

The cool breeze had reached force four, enough to incite whitecaps and the occasional two-foot breaker on Lake Harris. Enough to move Sail Ship One, my nineteen-foot O’Day 192, along at a smart pace. It was February 2023, with temperatures in the low fifties, but abundant sunshine under deep blue skies made it feel like the seventies.

At ten miles long and four miles wide at its midsection, Lake Harris is the largest of the “Harris Chain of Lakes” in central Florida. The chain includes Lakes Griffin, Eustis, Dora, Beauclair, Carlton, and Yale. (One reference I found claimed Lake Apopka was part of the chain, but most identify it only as the headwaters of  the chain.) Most of the lakes in the chain are connected, some by small rivers and some by canals, but bridges prevent their navigation by a sailboat with its mast up.

Lake Harris is an underutilized lake, considering the amount of good water. I rarely have trouble parking when I launch at one of its four public boat ramps—all in excellent shape, with good dock support and no launch fees. The southern section below Hickory Point Park is called “Little Lake Harris.” This section is inaccessible to most sailboats because the Route 29 bridge is less than twenty feet high.

Recent years saw an uptick in bass fishing tournaments, and the Harris Chain is now a popular stop on the ESPN Bassmaster Tournament Trail. Even when one of the boat ramp parking lots was filled with tournament fishing boats, I barely noticed their presence on the lake because of its size. On a perfect weather day, I rarely see more than a few watercraft in an hour.

Sail Ship One made good progress in the afternoon blow, and I might have checked my speed if I had any place to be or any reason to care.

The breeze slacked as sunset approached, so I looked for a place to drop my anchor for the night. I was near Long Island on the eastern end of the lake, so I headed that way. At one mile long, the island hardly earns its moniker, though it is considerably narrower than it is long.

I grew up on the famous “Long Island” in New York—a hundred miles long and home to two of the five New York City boroughs, as well as Jones Beach and The Hamptons. But the Lake Harris Long Island was far more appealing to me that afternoon. Most important were its inhabitants: birds, small reptiles, amphibians, mollusks, plants, and insects. No humans. A local sailor once told me he and his friends called it “Goat Island” when he was young, but there are no goats on the island anymore—and perhaps no mammals at all except the occasional bat. He also identified neighboring Horseshoe Island as “Naked Island.” I hope to cross the sailor’s path again someday, to buy him a beer and hear more stories about the islands and the lake.

I tacked across the inlet on the northern end of Long Island. Opposite the island’s tip, I could see the Lake Harris Hideaway, a casual restaurant and bar with docks for boaters to tie up. I’ve occasionally docked there for lunch, but the one time I approached for dinner, I found the docks overcrowded with small power boats. Anyway, today’s trip was about getting away and visiting nature. (A word to the wise: Sometimes the Hideaway has live music in the evenings, and depending on wind direction, you can hear the band a mile or more away, intruding on my “nature getaway” until 10 or 11 at night. However, I’ve never found it loud enough to distract significantly.)

As I rounded the northern tip of the island, a male osprey with a wingspan approaching four feet passed overhead, a bundle of grass and twigs in his talons. His high-pitched call rose in intensity and then fell away like the sound of a whistling kettle taken quickly off a stove.

Navigating the last half mile to the center of the island’s protected side took a few more tacks. I dropped the anchor in ten feet of water, about fifty feet from the marshy, wooded shore. Although the island was less than fifty feet wide, a dense covering of trees, vines, and Spanish Moss made it impossible to see the other side.

When I purchased my O’Day 192 six years ago, it had no galley. I’ve been reading SCA for over 15 years and have benefited from many of the informative books and articles by Paul (“Capt’n Pauley”) Esterle. His book Cooking Aboard a Small Boat includes his usual well-informed, practical advice on many topics. The chapter on “Organization” includes pictures and wonderfully detailed descriptions of designing and building a custom galley box. In my first winter after buying Sail Ship One, I turned the port side of the V-berth into a galley and storage area and built a galley box for either cabin or cockpit use. This was a perfect evening for cooking in the cockpit on my single-burner butane stove.

After a simple dinner and cleanup, I moved my cockpit cushion to the bow and settled in to watch the fading glow of sunset over gently rippling waters.

I must have dozed off, but a splash off the port bow woke me with a start. The moon was poking above the horizon, and a fish’s tail disrupted its silvery reflection. I watched the circular ripples grow into an ever-widening bullseye marking where the fish broke the surface. I wondered what became of him. Did he escape his predator? The waves remembered his jump but faded like a yellowing photograph.

Overhead, the nighttime sky was clear, but the encroaching moonlight reduced my night vision. I relaxed and gazed at the pin-pricked sky. The sailboat rocked on the small wake of a passing fishing skiff. The breeze turned us, and I watched the stars rotate, rise, and fall. It was like looking up while riding a horse around its paddock.

The evening is a busy time on the lake and island, when the residents have shaken off their torpor and started to sing their elaborate mating songs. At first, there was only the soft chatter of crickets and katydids. But as I lay on the deck, hypnotized by the stars and quiet chirps, a faint sound arose from the island like a high-pitched horn. It started in low, then grew in both pitch and volume. The solo musician continued its keening wail for several seconds, then stopped as quickly as it started. It reminded me of the opening movement of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” wherein a clarinet trill begins the concerto with an upward sliding note.

The mysterious musician awakened a supporting chorus. Cicadas clicked their tymbals in a steep crescendo, like an army of tiny maracas. They started on the island, rising and then falling. After a brief pause, a similar motif was repeated on the mainland, a half mile to my other side, answering them. Peepers and owls joined in, along with numerous unidentified accompanists. I wondered if they sang to each other or just enjoyed making a consonant harmony.

I came here for solitude, but I found an orchestra. I drifted off to the sounds of nature’s rhapsody. •SCA•