We are settled in to the Marina RV Park in Moore Haven, Florida. The campground is "parked" right next to the main lock controlling both boat entry to and from the
Caloosahatchee River and water levels in the lake and river. In the years we have lived "down stream" in Cape Coral the water levels have been disastrously high creating a risk of flooding and levee damage around the lake and often "polluting" the shoreline fisheries of the gulf down near Fort Myers with an overabundance of fresh water and plant life. We had driven around the lake previously but not really seen much of it or learned anything in particular about it. As with most things, it is very different than we thought.
For starters, the idea that flooding could be and would always be a problem is gone. In fact the level of the lake is so low right now, that the fishermen I have spoken to have all said it is nearly impossible to get into the lake at all- down some six feet, leaving parts of the access waterways with only a foot or so of water. With Florida's constant risk of Hurricanes and heavy rains, you can't know how long conditions like this will last, but suffice it to say that with a lake this big, it will take an ENORMOUS amount of rain to fill it back up, so the coastal fishery should have a good period of time to recover- which it desperately needs- a fact that should make my fishing buddies, Captain Larry, Jim and Rick, all very happy. Now if Rick could just stop loosing those blessed
bobbers of his...
Yesterday I stood on the banks of the canal to the lock looking down at and talking to a fisherman who said if the lake were at its normal level he would be sitting and fishing where I was standing and talking. A picture can't show the distance, but with the amount of wind blowing off the lake we had to shout to each other just to have the conversation. We wanted to put the kayaks in and paddle around, but the combination of high winds two days running and the number of gigantic alligators laying along the shore just about everywhere forced us to wait for a day with better weather. We are not so afraid of the gators sitting in the kayak, but if we get wind flipped and are IN the water with them- well, that's another story. I did fish from shore for a while ( yes, fishing team, I was skunked ). You'd figure with so much less water the fish would be concentrated, but instead only the varmints were, and one guy down at the dock killed a water moccasin that was in the way of his loading his six passengers for a boat ride around the lock. I watch where I put my feet every time I am down at the water now. The ranger who told us we really do need to be careful with the alligators (and the dog) was surely correct- thought originally that was just tourist stuff...Wrong!
So how low is the water in terms of how the system works? Okeechobee sits more or less in the middle of the state. Through the rivers and the associated canals (Panama it ain't) a boat can get from the Atlantic to the Gulf of Mexico and spend some time in the fresh water of the lake in the process. But with water levels where they are now, there are actually some boats stranded at positions withing the system. The last two days in a row I have watched a couple of sailboats untie from the hitch posts and pass through the gates into the lock only to return a short while later having once again been unable to leave the lake side of the lock and enter the
Caloosahatchee. On some openings of the lock, the water, because of the unusual water levels, has apparently actually flowed in the wrong direction! Has the locals pretty much confounded! One guy told me- "No air boat, no Lake Okeechobee."
Hopefully by weeks end there will be more from here with pics, but to be truthful it is not a spectacularly beautiful area. Oh the lake is gorgeous to the eye, the dead trees in the former flood zones are eerily interesting, and the rushes lined with gators are always fun to see, but nothing jumps up and screams to be photographed at this point. The campground itself is not particularly picturesque either, even if interesting. It looks a little like the area of the moon where our space ship landed all those many years ago...or as they say in Robin William's RV Movie, the "place where Nassau faked the moon landing." We are on a soft sand lot in the hollow between two of the layered levees of the lake. If they had named the place
Craterville instead of Moore Haven, you would get a more accurate picture of the place.
The town is a bit like the former landing spot on the moon as well - much of it deserted and in poor repair and much of it still trashed from whichever of the last 8 hurricanes or so trashed it to begin with. But we did find a post office and sent out the mail we had been holding and a grocery store and even a city hall and lots of places (looked authentic anyway) to get a Cuban or a Mexican dinner. In the outlying areas, the orange crops are starting to be harvested so the Spanish influence at this time of year is even greater than normal. Surely this is a "poor" area. But unlike many poor areas, we have not seen bars on windows and signs of needless vandalism. Windows in abandoned buildings are unbroken. As we have learned by living in Honduras for five years before coming to Florida- a third world country by just about
every one's definition, "poor" is not always synonymous with negatives like vandalism, crime, danger- at least not
more so than the extent to which those things exist everywhere. So "poor" is often visible to the passing eye, but often nothing more.....And "poor" has little or nothing to do at all with what is in a person's heart and how that person will treat you given half a chance and a certain level of respect that we are all due.
From Okeechobee: Water level down; Spaniard level up.
Night fishing at the camp's marina pier. Marilyn catches an exotic of her own- a sailfin catfish. Once a common aquarium "pet", they have proliferated heavily in the waterway. At the bait shop we saw a color poster of the exotics that now live in the lake system- there are dozens of them! Tilapia, Killifish, walking catfish, clown knife fish and on and on- some of them are a nuisance at this point but some have already become prized "protein" species. That's the way with a lot of things. When I was a young guy and went fishing on party boats, the captains often killed what they called "undesireable species" by clubbing them and throwing them overboard. Many of those species are now prized for flesh and sport- like sharks. The picture that follows is me with an alligator gar.
The weather was warm enough, but windy and overcast, and since our time here was limited, we decided to put the "yaks" in and paddle around with the gators. It's a bit unnerving when you get too close, as I did a time or two trying to get a picture, but it surely is something not everyone gets to do and we sure had a great time in the water. Suffice it to say that my "best shots" of gators close up did not make the album. It seems that they "jumped" about the same time I did and the shot was partly or mostly missed. Shooting a digital camera through a dry bag in bright light is difficult to begin with, and darn near impossible when you try to do it fast enough so as not to become gatorbait! Look closely at the shoreline opposite where we launched.
We paddled past the entry gate to the lock for entering the Caloosahatchee River from Lake Okeechobee. It's one big gate! Very impressive.
December in Florida and the water lillies are in bloom. No ice storms here like elsewhere in the country on this day...
The army corps of engineers, who built and owns the lock put in a river walk park which is very nice. They lease back the land in the area of the development to the state for parks, the campground operator for camping, and the like. Some aspects and operations were wonderful and nicely maintained. Regrettably some were not.
The spillway to the Caloosahatchee, one of a series of spillways to other outlets, is used to control the water levels in the lake and the locks.
Why did the turtle cross the road? What? Are you kidding? To visit the chicken, of course.
You may know the name but no recognize this as one: weedeater. Powered by a paddlewheel, this canal monster patrols the waterways of the lake and cuts and removes excess vegetation like water lettuce and hyacynthe plants.
There is a small five footer or so gator on the bank here. Not big enough to scare me but evidently big enough not to be scared of me. There were gators to 14 feet all over the place. They all look pretty big when you are sitting eye to eye with them "in" the water on top of a kayak.
