Touring central Florida by airplane

America’s Seaplane City, I decided it was time to cross another item off my list.

Hoping to shed its “Anytown, USA” status, Tavares built a seaplane base in 2010. The city has logged more than 20,000 commercial and private landings since then. Jones Brothers books an additional 2,500 to 3,000 flights per year, including plane-boat-train excursions and bar hop fly-ins to waterfront pubs. The tour operator also offers newlyweds a memorable sendoff. After getting married at Tavares’ Pavilion on the Lake, many couples do a flyover of their wedding party before heading to a honeymoon destination.

Back in the cockpit, I watch as our plane skims the water. With the quick grace of a dragonfly, we are airborne. The Gatsbyesque grounds of the Lakeside Inn recede. Mount Dora, a town often compared to a New England village, is equally picturesque at 1,000 feet, its white church steeples peeking through an emerald-green tree canopy.

Frostman’s confident navigation and narration calm my fears. The view captivates me, and I take in details I would never have seen from an Airbus. Several uninhabited islands dot celadon-green lakes rimmed by wooded shorelines.

“Some people are apprehensive at first, but once you’re up here, it’s so serene, you forget about being nervous,” Frostman says, echoing my thoughts. As we soar over the Harris Chain of Lakes, he adds, “You’d never know how much water there is in Lake County until you see it from the air.”

It’s an appropriate comment to introduce the highlight of our tour. “We’ll prepare for our splash and dash next,” Frostman says, banking the plane left and grinning at my exhilarated “Whee!” I’m equally amused. For once, I’m not clutching an armrest. The nimble Cessna seems built for such moves, and I revel in the reprieve from gravity.

Frostman says he will make his approach over a canal, then splash down onto Lake Harris. Surveying the tangle of trees below,