Jettison the jitters for ‘flightseeing’ Florida thrills

“Who wants to be the co-pilot?” Evan Frostman asks.

Minutes earlier, Frostman, a pilot for Jones Brothers Air and Seaplane Adventures in the central Florida city of Tavares, had expertly landed his plane on Lake Dora. He now waits as my friend Dennis and I size up the Cessna four-seater. We are standing on the dock of the historic Lakeside Inn in Mount Dora, preparing to fly over and splash down on one of the region’s 1,000-plus lakes.

Dennis gallantly concedes, and I step into the cockpit.

The irony of this is not lost on me. A member of the fainthearted flyers club, I have white-knuckled my way through flights on major airliners. To my wary eyes, this craft appears just slightly larger than a Florida mosquito. So why am I boarding a single-engine seaplane? Blame it on my bucket list, an everlengthening compendium of inexplicable desires.

When I learned that Tavares had reinvented itself as 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 another 2,500-3,000 flights per year, including plane-boat-train excursions and bar hop fly-ins to waterfront pubs. The tour operator also offers newlyweds a unique sendoff. After getting married at FLIGHTSEEING: LAKESIDE INN: GETTING THERE: 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 celadongreen 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 own 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 Cess-