St. Lucie South at St. Lucie Lock is a tiny Corps of Engineers campground close but not too close to the Florida Turnpike and I-95 southwest of Stuart, Fla. It’s right on the St. Lucie Canal part of the Okeechobee Waterway.

The campground features nine paved W/E campsites complete with covered picnic tables and fire rings, eight boat dockage W/E sites and a few tent campsites. Everything’s in great condition and the bathhouse is immaculate.

Come in by land or water.

Here’s the bathhouse.

There’s not a whole lot to do within the campground other than walk and fish and watch the water slosh. For more intrepid walkers and bicyclists there’s the surrounding community to explore.

The Lock

Directions to St. Lucie Lock Recreation Area

Campground Office is at N27º 06′ 37.21″ W80º 17′ 06.16″. The physical address is 2170 SW Canal Street/Campground, Stuart, FL 34997

Phone: 772-287-1382

From I-95, take Exit 101 (Stuart/Indiantown), following SR 76 W for 0.5 miles to Locks Road. Turn N on Locks Road to Canal Street intersection and make a left into the campground.

http://www.saj.usace.army.mil/Missions/CivilWorks/Recreation/Camping/StLucieSouth.aspx

South Bay is a very nice 35-acre campground provided by Palm Beach County at the southeastern rim of Lake Okeechobee. It’s an oasis among many miles of cane fields.

It offers 72 paved FHU RV sites each with grill, picnic table, cable TV, good wifi throughout the campground, playground, restrooms with laundry and hot showers and a dump station. It’s very big-rig friendly. The grounds and facilities are kept very clean.

We were surprised to find a site available for a week the third week of January, the January that was already going down in history as one of the coldest in decades complete with snow along the Gulf coast from Texas to the Florida Big Bend. Although the maximum stay is 100 days many people were on the move.

This isn’t a resort park; there’s no pool and no planned activities. It’s somewhat remote; the closest real supermarkets are in Clewiston and Belle Glade. An advantage is that it’s inexpensive compared to those resort parks.

Lake Okeechobee isn’t visible; it’s surrounded by the 30-foot-high Herbert Hoover dike created after hurricane surge killed thousands in 1928. Next to the park is an access road across the dike to boat ramps and a fishing pier on the rim canal. Atop the dike is a gated access road that actually goes all the way around the lake and is a scenic trail. The lake itself still isn’t visible because it’s miles across grassy islands.

South Bay RV Park
100 Levee Road
South Bay, Florida 33493

(561) 992-9045
FAX: (561) 992-9277
TOLL-FREE:
(877) 992-9915

http://www.pbcgov.com/parks/camping/southbay/#.Uu6V2-Hz_aA

Entrance to the park!

Ortona is an almost-perfect little campground on the Okeechobee Waterway; what would make it perfect is if it was FHU.

Ortona is  roughly two-thirds from La Belle to Clewiston on the north side of a huge cow pasture. Or it’s halfway from Nowhere and BFE but things are changing. SR 80 is being four-laned and ranches are being turned into developments with a capital D. And every one of them will have a friggin golf course.

Lane by lot 13 and the bathhouse!

Anyway, the Garmin gal tried to make us turn through a farm gate onto a non-road. You  want to turn on Dalton Road, not Goodno Road no matter what the blithering bitch (Miss Garmin) might say. And we wended our way through the cows to Ortona South camppground provided by the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers.

A tug boat pushing a tug boat through the locks!

It’s 51 sites in two loops and all are long;  they’re not only big-rig friendly, some are two-rig friendly. All sites  have a _covered_ picnic table and a fire ring/bbq pit. While the roads are blacktop the sites are concrete and are perfectly level. The shower houses are ship-shape.

One could say there’s not a whole lot to do. That depends on your perspective. You could piddle around on your 3G or 4G internet or  you could go outside and watch boats go through the lock and if you’re really ambitious you could go down to the fishing pier a drown bait while watching boats go through the lock.

Beautiful Palms through out the park!

What’s really to do is BE WARM IN WINTER! There’s a crowd that meets here every winter. Unfortunately there’s a 14-day limit.

BTW Ortona North appears to be a boat launch and rec area but you can’t get there from here.

Directions to Ortona South Campground:

Campground Office is at N26º 47′ 15.00″ W81º 18′ 28.98″. The physical address is 2410 Dalton Lane SW, Moore Haven, FL 3347

Phone: 863-675-8400

From LaBelle, travel 10 miles east on Highway 80, turn north on Dalton Lane and follow into campground.

From Clewiston, travel 9 miles north on Highway 27 to Highway 80. Follow Highway 80 west for 14 miles to Dalton Lane, turn north and follow into campground.
Contact Info

863-983-8101

SFOO@usace.army.mil