Lake Okeechobee Florida

When we looked for an RV park in South Florida for November and December we found our choices to be quite limited! It didn’t surprise us because after living there for 38 years, we know what a popular area it is once the weather up north gets chilly. The Palm Beach County run RV park in South Bay is right on Lake Okeechobee Florida. So we booked our time there until January 8, 2023.

The park was gorgeous! Spacious, fully paved sights with patios and picnic tables meant that Ladybug would stay clean inside. The people were very friendly there, and it was an awesome place to take long walks along the small lakes on the property. We even got to visit a resident alligator that we dubbed Elvis. Of course, we kept a safe distance!

But the park was along a part of Lake Okeechobee that is protected by small land masses. It wasn’t in an area where you can see just how vast Lake O really is. And we were determined to find access to that area. We tried driving to Clewiston, but the view there was very much the same as in South Bay. By the time we learned where to go for the best view, which was in Pahokee, we had to leave. Not because our time was up, but because a hurricane was threatening and we were forced to evacuate the park!!!

Luckily for us, our dear friends in Jupiter Farms FL welcomed us with open arms, to mooch dock in their driveway for a few days. It’s so awesome to have friends like that.

As it turned out, it was much ado about nothing. But always better to be safe than sorry, especially when you’re not living in a brick and mortar home. We returned to our site in South Bay and a couple of days later, we took a drive to Pahokee for our Lake O viewing.

All I can say is WOW WOW WOW. Lake Okeechobee is so enormous that it looks like an ocean! It is the third largest freshwater lake in the country. And it’s often referred to as Florida’s Inland Sea. To give you an idea of just how large it is, it’s 28.96 miles wide by 35.73 miles long. It covers an area of 730 miles! That’s HUGE. In the Seminole Indian language Lake Okeechobee means “big water. It seem a very appropriate name because Lake O is so big that you can’t see land on the opposite shore.

Geologists estimate that Lake Okeechobee was formed approximately 6,000 years ago when ocean waters receded and water was left in a shallow depression that became the lake bed. There’s a wonderful, paved trail that was designated as part of the Florida National Scenic Trail in 1993. The Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail is about 110 miles encircling the lake. It’s perfect for walking, hiking, rollerblading, bicycling and horseback riding. And it’s also awesome for viewing some of the native wildlife, from all sorts of birds to wild hogs, manatees, turkeys and even alligators that Lake O is teeming with.

Lake O is well known to be a superior place for fishing for Large Mouth Bass and Speckled Perch. Thousands of anglers and water fowl hunters visit the Lake each year. It’s also a photographer’s paradise because it’s rich with flora and fauna as well as breathtaking views. But watch out for large gators! There are 1,700 gators over 9-feet long living in Lake Okeechobee. In fact, it’s the most alligator infested lake in all of Florida. As beautiful as the lake is, don’t be tempted to take a dip!