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| Harvesting sugar cane |
Lake Okeechobee is the 2nd largest freshwater lake in the USA – second only to the Beautiful Blue Lake Michigan. An odd shaped circle, the lake encompasses 730 square miles, is normally 14 feet deep, and has 143 miles of earthen levees around it. The 30 ft tall levees are rimmed with paths suitable for biking and walking and bird watching. At the southern end of the lake is Clewiston, then South Bay where we stayed last year and Belle Glade. About 10 miles up the right side is Pahokee. These small, OLD, agricultural towns are all surrounded by the massive sugar cane farms. As we approached the area from the west there were varying stages of cane growing as far as the eye could see. Some fields, black from being burned were plowed and ready for planting. Some fields were already a foot tall. Some cane was tall, tasseled and drying – ready to be burnt off. In every direction, rolling black clouds rose above red-hot flames that roared across the dry field. Huge tractors and combine style equipment were rolling down the still smoking rows and harvesting the latest sweet crop. Flocks of egrets and ibis followed closely behind, looking for some tasty morsel that may have been uncovered. Ashes flew everywhere – across the roads and in the towns and even out on the island.
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| Torry Island campground |
Just west of Belle Glade and on the lake side of the tall
grassy dike is Torry Island – and the city campground/park that carries the
same name. The campground has been here a long time and has improved some since
H used to camp here a long time ago but still needs a lot more TLC. The water is high in the lake and with all
the rain the campground is still a bit soggy – besides being surrounded by saw
grass and swamp too! Several canals
have been dug to create peninsulas for campsites that allow campers to have
their boats at their own site. Our
“train” backed up to one such canal but it is obvious that it had not been
cleaned out in a bunch of years! It’s
full of floating weeds, tall reeds, trash and even a 4 ft gator that suns
itself on the grassy edge when it is warm enough - just feet from our
trailer!
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| View from our back window |
Right across the
canal from us is just one of the big dams that hold back the water in this
expansive lake. This dam and several of the others are still holding back water
while the ones that lead to the Caloosahatchee River to the west and the St
Lucie canal to the east are wide open.
We’ve oohed and ahhed at several glorious sunsets while
we’ve been here. We’ve also hiked a 2-mile path that led over a green steel
bridge and thru the swamp to the west of this sunset. We stuck to the center of
the dry, mowed path while being alert to the jungle noises that
kept attacking
our ears – chirping & squawking birds of all kinds and other unnerving
rustling noises in the tall grasses.
Snakes? Gators? At one clearing
H let out a yelp and jumped back as soon as he saw the large black gator! Other campers have seen “her” and her 20
babies so we stayed clear of her grassy resting area. Down the path further we came upon a pair of frolicking otters that
chased each other back and forth until they saw/heard us approaching. Even further down the path was an even
larger monster of a gator! H was ready
to turn back but the big fella’ decided to slither off the path and into the
dark water, allowing us to pass thru his territory –QUICKLY!
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| Port Miayaka lock |
We’ve made even more new friends in our short stay on Torry
Island. Janey and Bob are from Michigan and have a trailer that looks like a
cousin to ours. We rode our bikes up on
the dike with them and even went out to dinner one evening. Debi and Jeff are full timers from
Ohio! Bruce and Helen are avid birders
from Goshen!
Our week is now complete.
The finishing touch was a “round the lake” trip to the town of
Okeechobee on the very northern tip of the lake. Flea Markets, a humongous fish sandwich lunch at Cowboys (again!)
and stops at piers and parks all along the way filled up our Saturday.
