Leaving Walt Disney World behind, it would be approximately 150 miles to our next destination, Stuart, Florida. Similar to our stay in St. Augustine, we added “America’s Happiest Seaside Town” (dubbed by Coastal Living Magazine) as a destination not only because we had been here before and thoroughly enjoyed the area but we also wanted to check out potential marinas in nearby Ft. Pierce for a possible stay during the 2024-2025 season in our boat.

Phipps Park Campground, waterfront site #29, would be our home for six nights while we explored the area. Located along the Okeechobee Waterway in a 55-acre conservation area, the campground offers 99 RV sites (58 waterfront and 41 interior sites), all equipped with 20/30/50-amp electric service, water and sewer hookups, a picnic table and a fire pit.

In addition, there are 19 Adventure Tent Sites, each equipped with a 10×10 canvas tent, grill, picnic table and fire pit. But more about that later.

After renovations to the park were completed in 2022, the campground now has full access to the waterway with a paved hiking trail, 2 docks and a boat ramp.

 

In our opinion, the campground was just okay, the best part being the waterfront and that our site was on the water. However, for the $60 daily rate, it was pricey for a place that few amenities. The sites were crushed stone and dirt, not paved as we expected for the price, no patio, close together with no privacy between sites and spaced in groups of two with hookups electric and water hookups in the middle. THe sewer hookups were on the “correct” side in all cases. Luckily we were on an odd numbered site (#29) so when backed in, all the utilities were on the driver’s side and easily reachable. If we had selected site #30, we would have had to run our water hose and electrical cable under the coach (but the sewer would have been correct). Folks in the even numbered sites also had a very small patio area practically on top of us and the utility hookups. Although, one potentially beneficial option for a motorhome on the even numbered sites, would be to pull in the “wrong” way. This would give a water view out the windshield, put the electric and water on the correct side and provide a more comfortable patio area. The only issue is the sewer would require running the drain hose under the coach.

On the positive side, the waterfront was quite nice, a great place to watch boats going up and down the St. Lucie River, heading towards the Saint Lucie Lock and Dam, which is approximately 15.5 miles upstream of the intersection of the St. Lucie River and the Intracoastal Waterway, but just a short walk from the campground.

It is one of five locks located on the Okeechobee Waterway built by the Army Corps of Engineers (COE) connecting Stuart on the Atlantic Coast to Fort Myers on the Gulf Coast. Without the waterway, boaters would have to travel an additional 206 miles to go around Florida! Just as a note, this waterway is traversed by many boats doing the Great Loop.

The lock was within walking distance of Phipps Park Campground so it was a short stroll to the Visitor Center and the walkway next to the lock where we could watch the boats come and go. The first lock was built at this site by the Everglades Drainage District in 1925 at a cost of $2 million, then it was rebuilt by the Army Corps of Engineers in 1941. The dimensions of the lock chamber which is made out of concrete and steel sheet pile walls are 50′ wide by 250′ long by 10′ deep at low water. The lock serves as an elevator for boats lifting vessels about 14.5′, depending on the St. Lucie River’s tide stage and the canal’s water level. Out of the five locks along the waterway, the 14.5′ is the greatest elevation distance. According to the Army Corps of Engineers, approximately 10,000 vessels go through the lock annually; of these about 91% are recreational vessels.

Similar to other locks managed by the Army Corps of Engineers, there is also a COE campground, St. Lucie South, that offers 9 RV/tent sites and 8 boat campsites with electric and water hook ups and 3 tent sites with no hook ups. During our stay, we visited this campground, it looked okay but definitely a bit small and not as nice as other COE campgrounds we have visited or stayed at. The boat sites looked a bit tricky.

Back at Phipps, the Adventure Tents are located across a boardwalk and are permanent structures anchored along a maze of peninsulas connected via boardwalks in a freshwater marsh filtering stormwater runoff.

Here are the Adventure Tents. Note there is no vehicle access to these sites and no electricity or water is currently available at the sites so any equipment must be battery or solar powered.

Signs along the path explained how a stormwater treatment area works. Very interesting!

Returning to the coach, we enjoyed a beautiful sunset….

and a bit of after dark bling!

So that’s everything you need to know about the campground in Stuart, the next post will be about some new (and old) adventures that we had during our stay.

More photos are available here.