Florida Trail: Day 22
January 27, 2022
Mile: 99.8 to 126.8 (27.0 miles)
Start: South Bay RV Resort, South Bay, FL
Finish: Wild camping on the shores of Lake Okeechobee
The morning was slow and we took our sweet time to leave the camping resort. On the breakfast menu today was a cup of tea and oatmeal for me and coffee with granola for Shannon with an extra couple of helpings of chatting with curious RV campers. We even had time for a second cup of tea and coffee as our electronics finished charging and we sort of lost track of time. A bunch of the people staying at the RV resort (all of whom are aged 55 and above which was wild for us to be the youngest staying here in our 30s) stopped and asked us questions on the way out of the resort. One of the coolest people was a guy from Maine who had driven his RV all the way down to Florida and he said he had hiked a bunch of the long-distance trails before. Next year he was driving from Maine all the way across Canada staying in his camper for 800 miles of wilderness.
Another guy in an Army hat came by and the first thing he stated was that he thought he was doing better than us since he had an RV and we had a tent. It’s kind of a weird joke or flex and he was kind of a weird dude but we smiled and nodded and eventually he left. Soon it was 10 o’clock and we had miles to go that weren’t going to hike themselves so we hurried up and packed as we tried to politely answer people’s questions as they curiously strolled around our campsite. Being the only tent campers in an RV resort sure seems to attract a lot of attention. We drew quite a lot of looks from the local gaggle of women morning walking together as they whispered and gossiped, occasionally turning to stare at us. Trying to be the bigger people, we made eye contact and politely waved to these cliquey bitches which drew gasps and horrified looks as they quickly turned away from us. It felt like they thought we were some sort of vagrants staying on their precious RV resort in the “bustling” South Bay of Lake Okeechobee. I rolled my eyes and we packed up, glad to have been able to shower and do laundry here but equally glad to get away from this miserable place.
Anyways as we were checking out, the lady who was manning the office desk ended up getting in a huge argument with us trying to charge us for an entire roll of $10 worth of laundry quarters. Yesterday we had been told by their district manager that we could take the quarters we needed and they’d buy back the rest so we didn’t have to carry a couple pounds of metal coins. The lady working at the office desk was a complete b-word and gave us a ton of trouble checking out so we couldn’t wait to get out of there. She also told us that they never let people tent camp at the RV Resort which is 100% not true as other FT hikers this year have said they’d camped here. Like the stuck up ladies walking this morning, this lady looked down at us and I almost wished we’d snuck out during the night so we didn’t have to deal with her. Shannon volunteered to carry the $8 worth of quarters in his pack which probably added at least another 8 oz. Hopefully we can get rid of the extra weight soon.
Up the steep hill we plodded and back onto the bike path that encircled Lake Okeechobee. We were immediately glad for the weather today as it is overcast and a little misty with much cooler temperatures than the searing sticky heat of yesterday. This morning we could cover big miles and with completely flat terrain, nice quality bike path and the cool weather we were surely going to get where we wanted to go and probably then some. The early part of the day was kind of uneventful but the cool weather made us definitely question whether we were still in Florida. It felt more like we were trekking in the manicured hillsides of Wales or England instead of on top of a crumbling South Florida dam holding back the massive waters of Lake Okeechobee. Fabian Redwing who had been our airboat guide on the Miccosukee Reservation told us that Okeechobee means “big water” in the Seminole language. It was a big water and you couldn’t even see across to the other side because of how large the lake was.
At the southern end of the lake it seemed like there was a lot of swamp with a big canal that provided some still water protected from what appeared to be whitecaps out in the open lake. We later found out that these islands used to be inhabited by the first European American settlers who struggled valiantly to farm the mucky land. Lots of fishermen on boats zoomed through the canal and looked pretty chilly, most buttoned all the way up in what looked like winter clothing as the Florida temperatures are starting to take a dive for the chillier.
We passed by stacks of rocks brought in to make the dam sturdier. Flocks of black turkey vultures, several wickedly curved beaked ospreys and even a pair of nesting bald eagles this morning kept us entertained. There wasn’t a lot going on and few people out on the bike path and so you could zone out pretty easily and we both hopped in audiobooks and murder podcasts. The day passed by pretty quickly as the early afternoon brushed by with the sun managing to peek through the cloud cover and burnt off some of the overcast fog. Before we knew it, 12 miles was done and we had arrived at the tiny town of Pahokee on the central eastern part of Lake Okeechobee. The town was located behind the massive dikes that protected it from flood waters. We had planned on walking to the grocery store but for some reason my feet were pretty tender today and I had developed a couple of painful blisters. I think it may be my socks causing the blisters and I’ll probably buy some new ones as a certain pair of socks which I’m using are a knock-off brand of wool socks that seem to retain more moisture then my Smartwool socks.
Limping slightly, we went over to the bathroom, grabbed some water and then headed down to a cluster of covered picnic tables on the waterfront next to a marina. The wind was spilling off the lake pretty stiffly and we managed to find a spot where it was breezy but not too chilly. I popped some massive blisters that had developed over the past 12 miles even though my socks and shoes were freshly cleaned. Something seemed to be irritating my feet and I was going to conduct some experiments to figure out what it was – my shoes, socks, the dirt, the pavement – who knows!
We made a lunch of Shannon’s favorite legume protein Right Rice washed down with electrolyte drink mix, some sardines and other snacks. We spent an hour relaxing, letting our feet and socks in the breeze. Before we knew it was almost 4pm and we still hadn’t made huge progress today. I felt a lot better after taking some i-candy (a.k.a. ibuprofen), popping my blisters, drying them out with hand sanitizer and taping them up with blister bandages and Leukotape. My feet looked like robot feet with tape on a bunch of toes and heels. Hopefully they would dry out and my callouses would heal up soon.
We trekked on into the afternoon with little incident watching farmland down below to our east and the open waters of Lake Okeechobee to our west. On the east side you could occasionally spy alligators basking in the dark waters of the ditches. From the west the wind swept the tall reeds and grasses as a stiff breeze picked up again from across the lake blowing straight towards us. The only animals we spotted were on small farms where goats and cows mosied around amongst a background of endless sugarcane. We weren’t prepared to see coyotes on the levee which surprised us and was really cool to see trotting across the dike. A short while later as the sun was starting to set we thought we saw two more coyotes heading towards the lake for a drink of water. However, before the coyotes disappeared into the thick reeds next to the lake we realized they weren’t coyotes at all – they were two bobcats!
One of the large wild cats was shy and melted into the thick reefs and rocky shore. The other bobcat was very curious and peeked up at us from its hiding spot behind some boulders. If we didn’t have my telephoto lens camera, we would’ve easily mistaken the tawny spotted cat with large black and white spotted ears as one of the rocks on the lakeshore. The cats were beautiful as I’ve never seen a bobcat in real life and have only seen tracks and scat. The bobcats looked like massive house cats but like one that would actually eat your house cat if it had the chance. Seeing the wild cats was really cool and they were extremely beautiful. We were able to get some cool shots of one of the bobcats hiding and peeking out from the grasslands before it slunk off to drink water from the lake.
As the sun started to set, we basked in the glorious light and marveled at the palette of wild colors emerging. Night fell and in the darkness we were able to hike for probably about an hour after sunset without our headlamps turned on because of the white gravel bike path shining brightly against the dark green hillside of the grassy levee. When we turned on our headlamps, the world lit up with different kinds of eyes staring at us from all over the levee. There was the closely set greenish yellow eyes of the raccoons lumbering down on the banks of the canal. The raccoons were probably eating mollusks or rinsing off their dinner in the water. A single golden orange eye shone like a lighthouse beam, staring at us from a big pool in one of the ditches surrounded by about a dozen other tiny amber eyes. This was a mama alligator with her young baby gators as the mamas stay with their babies for up to a year. It was a good thing that we were so far away from the often very aggressive and protective mama alligators. We saw raccoon families who stared at us like deer in headlights as they lumbered along the canal and a couple of brassy-eyed coyotes running up and down the hillside hunting rabbits and other small mammals. It was really cool.
As darkness set in fully, we found ourselves having to cross a massive bridge in the dark over the St. Lucie canal. This canal goes all the way from Lake Okeechobee to the ocean at Port Saint Lucia and I’m sure manatees and bull sharks swim up its deep waters. We didn’t wanna fall in or get run over and so we were careful with planning our crossing technique. Somehow we lucked out with the traffic heading our way on the bridge being very light and minimal and with our headlamps on, we were able to cross on the wide shoulder without incident. I did look down at one point from the bridge and below one of the roadway pylons there were a couple of golden orange eyes staring back up at us from a large alligator. If there were gators in the shallow ditches, who knows what’s lurking in the deep dark water of the channel below us.
After we crossed the bridge we’d already covered close to a full marathon of hiking today and I knew my body was starting to stiffen up a little bit with the mileage. We hiked along a park road that was supposed to be pretty empty but a couple of cars zoomed up as we were trekking along the road and with it being pitch dark, we jumped aside to avoid being hit. The cars sped over to where there was a group of people fishing off one of the piers and it looks like they’d caught something massive and were cutting it up. We didn’t want to get involved with whatever was going on if it was legal or not so we just kept our headlamps facing forward, looking for green eyes of raccoons and golden orange of the alligators.
At one point I must’ve been too enthusiastic in searching for animal eyes after we crossed the gate blocking any cars from coming onto the bike path. Across the canal on the mainland, I guess I accidentally shone my headlamp on someone with a campfire next to the water who likely could be a homeless person or maybe they own the property – who knows, it’s dark out! I think I pissed them off because they started flashing their very bright headlamp back at us, blinding our eyes because we must’ve apparently been doing that to them. Oopsies! I was just looking for alligators to see if it was safe enough to camp on the canal side of the levee versus the lakeside.
The wind across the lake was really starting to pick up and if we could avoid camping exposed to the blustery lake it would be awesome. However we didn’t want to camp on the canal if gators were hanging out on the shores which were the only flat tenting spots. After the person across the canal from us frantically shined their lights in our eyes, potentially blinking in Morse code what I imagined was a hearty “FU,” we shut off our headlamps and hiked in stealthy dark mode for a while. It was a little sketchy marching on in the dark but we felt more comfortable taking our chance with running into a raccoon versus attracting unwanted attention from all the people around. We wanted to put some distance between us, the fishermen cutting up the fish and the pissed off person with a fire and their 1,000 lumen headlamp across the way. I don’t think they would’ve bothered us but I didn’t know if they’re gonna try to shoot at us or what. You never know because it’s freakin Florida and we’ve already been shot at once so far and had a run in with Florida Man. Luckily we had the wind blowing against the face of whoever was on the canal shining their light at us so even if they did shoot, it’d be a very difficult shot to make in the dark especially with our lights turned off. Maybe our imaginations were running wild but we didn’t want to take any chances against the most dangerous animal on the Florida Trail: humans.
We went dark (aka stealth mode) for about 20 or 30 minutes, hiking on with just the light from the shoreline and the stars as our guides. Turning back, we could see that the person on the canal was turning their light on the highest setting, searching for our silhouettes atop the dike. It’s kind of creepy so we put a little bit more distance between us and them than was probably necessary. It would take the people on the canal probably a good hour on foot to find us so we just wanted to be out of sight and out of mind. You could tell they were wondering where “those jerks with the bright light went” as they swung their flashlight beam back and forth across the canal.
It was exciting as we passed a covered bench which meant we’d put another mile between us and the angry campers with the fire. Our legs were tiring and we risked turning on our headlamps to see if we could camp on the canal out of the roaring winds coming off the lake. Unfortunately it seemed like we had reached a busier neighborhood on the mainland with lots of human dwellings with several houses shining bright spotlights that would easily pick up our tent on the levee. We walked past the cluster of houses thinking we were free to camp but then spotted a car idling in the woods so we walked on.
Exhausted, we dropped down 30 feet on the lake side of the levee to see if we could get any relief from the wind behind the talks reeds. The breeze was hardly moving the grassy lawn if we placed the tent right below the base of the cattails and reeds. We decided that the wind wasn’t too bad on the lake side and more so wanted to put the levee between us and whoever was on the canal and mainland just to be out of sight out of mind with the extra cover of darkness to protect us. Apparently it’s free stealth camping anywhere along the dike and all you really have to worry about is the weather and if you’re too close to people (or alligators lol). With tomorrow being Saturday and with our current streak of luck we’ll probably be woken up by some crazy cyclists or runners so we were planning on getting up around 6am to pack up before the sun rose.
Atop the Herbert Hoover Dike, the winds were whipping from the northwest blowing so fiercely to the point where we were starting to get a little chilly down here in South Florida amidst the palm trees. We were so thankful that the wind wasn’t as strong down by the shoreline hidden behind the rocks and some reeds. The grass wasn’t even moving down here so we decided on the open water side of the lake we’d probably be safer and attract less attention than the people partying in the woods shining lights in our faces on the alligator-filled canal side of the levee. We set up our tent as the stars twinkled in between the dispersed clouds that had started to move out allowing the sparkle to return to the navy blue sky. Not to toot our own horn but we’re getting pretty good at quickly setting up our tent in these fields because you don’t want to leave your stuff on the ground too long or spiders and other creepy crawlies start to make themselves at home. It’s not a fun experience when you bring your shirt into the tent with little critters unknowingly hiding in it and wake up with a 1.5 inch long spider crawling over your face a few hours later.
We shoved our gear in the tent, not eating dinner because we were too tired and promptly fell asleep. It sounded like we were on the ocean with how strongly the waves were crashing with the brisk northwest wind. It was familiar in a way, reminding me of fond memories of summer camping with friends on Lake Champlain’s wild northern islands only accessible by boat. I smiled spryly, the sound of crashing waves recalling secret beach parties back home in high school and college, sitting on the cool sand underneath the stars as the salty spray from the endless Atlantic filled the air and the crappy beer and goldschlager encouraged deep talks with friends about what the future might hold. Just like in the past, the rhythmic cresting of the lake waves and the spray rushing off the rocks calmed my worries and eventually lulled me to sleep.