Week long kayak trip on the Suwannee River

Keep a can of WD-40 with you as well. It comes in handy to lube the drive parts as well as steering mechanism. You may want to take some of the steering line with you as you say they are used and have had issues. Hope you never need it, I as well have years of extended use on these yaks and have never had a failure yet. I'd have them all looked at by a pro before setting out on a long haul. just like a car before a big trip. Have fun, A good friend did a different part of the river earlier this year.

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Have Fun-Will Travel
2013 Outback-Sand
2014 Pro Angler-Papaya

Okay, been building up my parts list then came across a Hobie drive on craigslist. It appears to be V1. I have both. After a quick look, I see that the V2 has the added pegs for aligning. If I had a set of pegs, would that make a V1 a V2? I looked around and saw that some parts would need to be changed but not sure where I saw that and if this wold work as a temporary drive until we got into camp. If this was a V2 I would purchase it with no questions since it would be a great backup. Not sure how long I will have my 06 adventure though.

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2012 Outback with sail / 2012 Outback / 2013 11' Revo / 2006 16' Adventure (no AKAs)

We live just south of that area in the Tampa bay area and we have had more rain here in the last month than anyone has ever seen. We don't watch the weather up there, but hopefully someone from that area can report the river depths as time gets a little closer (the rangers would know). We have done many of the other rivers in the area but never the Suwannee ourselves. On the Sante Fe that time of year the river is normally a little low (I don't know about this year yet but we will likely go there in late august). There are usually a lot of weeds and lilies that time of year. We typically remove the mirage drives, raise the rudder, and paddle about 1/3 of the time (all the boats you mentioned paddle very well). Keep in mind you are going down stream the whole trip, and your not in any kind of race, many of the guys on this forum are extreme hardcore racers and used to pushing everything to the limits. Plus you are going with a large mixed group of paddle kayaks and canoes, I suspect downstream trying to do only 12 miles a day you will be just drifting (only pedaling at maybe 15 or 20 cpm at the most with your foot on the brakes most of the time so the others can keep up anyway (I'm not kidding). I don't know about the Suwannee, but on the Sante Fe 80% do that river on inflatabe tires and rafts and paddle with their hands (our biggest challenge is usually avoiding the drunken rafters (it's a college area lol), and avoiding bumping into heads with the huge crowds at each spring. My wife has a bad knee that creeps up once in a while where she can no longer pedal. The mirage drives are so powerful it's not even an issue if someone has issues to hook up and tow one of the other boats if needed. Plus a huge feature with Hobies that we use all the time on long excursions that you can't do on other yaks is when your legs get tired, just switch to paddles for a while giving your legs a break (totally different sets of muscle groups).
Anybody can wreck a mirage drive in fifteen minutes doing stupid stuff like trying to continue to peddle thru shallows, pedaling thru weeds, etc. my opinion is it's all part of owning a Hobie being able to recognize quickly when not to use the drives (we have never wrecked or broken a mirage drive in 8 yrs of use). Carrying an extra drive along or extra shafts and a set of fins is probably a good idea (along with some tools) just in case, but I doubt you will need them (the darn things are really durable and trouble free if you use them carefully, and take care of them (routine maint and lubrication). Bottom line even if you wreck a drive along the way, or someones legs go out (like my wifes misterious and convienent leg ailments (I'm on to her game (lol), it won't slow you down in my opinion. The important thing is to have fun, and keep your head down around those giant crazy jumping fish (the reason we don't go on the Suwannee ourselves).
You can monitor all the area river levels at mysuwanneeriver.org, if really low, or near flood stage at the time of your trip, there may be advisories in place.
Have fun
Bob

Bob, thanks for your reply. I used to live in Clearwater during my school years and then in Tampa from mid 90s to 2000. Also familiar with the Santa Fe since we used to visit Ginnie Springs (now it is party town for the college kids, found that out the hard way).

We have been watching the water levels via this link. The key is that level is based on White Springs which is where we start at. I am expecting the water to go up but our trip isn't until the beginning of October. Hopefully it will not be below the 51.7 water mark which makes it difficult to paddle.

Your right about the speed of us Hobies vs the canoes. I am more concerned about keeping my girls (13 & 11) interested, calm, and enthusiastic.

Already looking for other adventures in the next couple of years. Buffalo River in the Ozarks looks great, and the Boundary Water Canoe Area is a place I would like to return to. Not sure about portaging the Hobies though, may bring wheels.

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2012 Outback with sail / 2012 Outback / 2013 11' Revo / 2006 16' Adventure (no AKAs)

Question: my brother has indicated that water guns will be brought on this trip. No problem and I am planning on making my own. I had a thought this weekend, since I already am planning on having a battery on board for fishfinder and a Gopro camera setup, I am thinking that I could rig up some small pump to have as an option for the water gun. I looked at bilge pumps but that isn't particle since I want to hide the pump somewhere (probably underneath stuff on the back deck). I figure I could use the scupper holes as the inlet and then route a small tube somewhere.

Anyone done anything crazy like this or have any ideas/suggestions?

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2012 Outback with sail / 2012 Outback / 2013 11' Revo / 2006 16' Adventure (no AKAs)

Coolest idea ever. I would just buy a couple of those huge water soaker guns that shoot 30-40 ft and have fun with it.
Bob

Well thanks. I found some 12v inline pumps on Amazon for <$20 that I may play with. Sounds crazy but I have access to charging the battery every night. My problem is that I want it to be a surprise (from all but my wife) and will try to not reveal it for a couple of days. Once revealed, no one will play with me!

Oh, I found some plans on making the soaker guns using PVC pipe. I will need to add that link to this thread. I think I can build 4 or 5 for less that $20. They would be a lot stronger, and less likely to break, than the store bought ones.

I am running out of time so not sure what on my list isn't going to get done.

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2012 Outback with sail / 2012 Outback / 2013 11' Revo / 2006 16' Adventure (no AKAs)

Only a month to go and running out of time. Lots to do, thankfully it is a long weekend.

This weekend is getting the boats cleaned up and some adjustments made on the the rudders.
Also going to start working on a frame to hold the umbrellas.
Will also start on these water guns

Next week I am going to order the Turbo ST fins for all boats. That will give me some extra sets of flippers if someone hits a large rock in the river.
I am also going to get this pump for my surprise "water cannon".

Fun times ahead...

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2012 Outback with sail / 2012 Outback / 2013 11' Revo / 2006 16' Adventure (no AKAs)

Well, we survived. Long story short we had a great trip and the Mirage drives impressed my brother who was in a canoe with his wife. We were able to keep up with less fatigue (my kids amazed him).

We had several issues but most were minor. I had a sprocket guard tear out which, in hindsight I should have caught the wear. Ended up using an awl and some zip ties. That lasted about 4 days before it failed again. At that point, my wife was paddling anyways due to leg fatigue.

Had the lever to a rudder pop off but I had an allen wrench in my kit due to changing out some turbo fins and having spare parts.

Also had a seat strap break. The plastic hook part broke. I was able to pull one off of my chair and replace it on my daughters. I had forgotten the screws on my seat so I wasn't using the strap anyways. Need to look into retrofitting that to the same twist handle like the more current kayaks if possible.

Looks like I will need to make some adjustments to the rudders of several kayaks. One pulley is completely disconnected (must have happened at the end), several others were not very responsive.

Water levels were excellent for pedaling. Only had one mishap and that was me. I was only 20 ft from stopping for the day but hit a large submerged rock. Twisted me sideways enough that I had to bail out before capsizing the boat. Wrenched my back a bit but that has been healing.

85 miles and a whole lot of fun.

I will post some more information once we go through the 1500+ pictures and many hours of video.

My 06 Adventure may have a fatal leak in it though. It was taking on water at the beginning but got progressively worse as the trip went on. I will need to put a flashlight in it at night to see what I am dealing with. Hopefully it isn't major. The amount of water in it was several gallons at least though.

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2012 Outback with sail / 2012 Outback / 2013 11' Revo / 2006 16' Adventure (no AKAs)

I've heard the drive wells in the early adventures, thats probably the first area to start looking. In later models, Hobie figured out how to make them uber reliable on pretty much all models, I think around 2010 or thereabouts. I've personally never owned an adventure, but owned several pre 2009 Hobies, then later three TI's, all the drive well issues seemed to be fixed on all my TI's. I have literally thousands of pedaling miles and have never had an issue with the newer boats (keep that thought in mind when looking for a used replacement hull, if it comes to that (basically anything 2011 or newer should be a better choice (just my opinion of course))
Hope to see lots of pics, hear lots of stories, and hopefully a trip guide, as it sounds like an epic trip.
FE
I did a lot of great Canoe excursions when younger (kinda before they had kayaks lol), I'm curious how your Hobies faired against the 'old school' canoes.

FE, that is what my thought was too. I figure when I had hit the rock, that it may have aggravated the leak as well. The other thing I didn't like was my butt was wet the whole trip. That could have been problematic if I had any soars trying to heal. Looked online last night at what was available used in the 2015. If I had a choice, I would go with a 13 ft Revo. My 16' seemed to be just too big out there. Of course an AI/TI would also be welcomed. We are also wanting a 2015 Oasis so we can bring friends.

I downloaded the pictures last night and we only took 1300 of them! Not sure how many the kids took but one is a shutter bug like her mother. Add the hours of video we took and we have some sorting to do.

Not sure if I should post the trip in trip section since it is in the AI/TI subforum.

Oh, I got this boat last Super Bowl for only $600 knowing the risk of the previous problems (I didn't see any cracks it it then). I figure I got my use out of it and if I have to retire it, I will keep the drive as a backup for future trips.

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2012 Outback with sail / 2012 Outback / 2013 11' Revo / 2006 16' Adventure (no AKAs)

I also need to get rid of the funky swamp smell in the kayaks. Looking into some of the Enzyme cleaners to do this....

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2012 Outback with sail / 2012 Outback / 2013 11' Revo / 2006 16' Adventure (no AKAs)

Well didn't find any obvious cracks in the hull using a flashlight. Saw some deep gouges though. I was riding low but I don't think it was low enough to let water in through the rudder cable holes in the back. I will look at some pictures to investigate further.

I first thought it may be because of the hatches but there wan't much water going over those.

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2012 Outback with sail / 2012 Outback / 2013 11' Revo / 2006 16' Adventure (no AKAs)

You might try raising it up on sawhorses and painting the suspect areas with a soapy mixture, then lightly pressurizing the hull with an air hose (only 2-3 psi). You should see some bubbling where it's leaking. You might be able to repair it with a plastic welding kit.


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P.S. We can't wait for a trip report, complete with pics!


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