St. Lucie Lock and Dam

St. Lucie Lock is the first of the five locks on the Okeechobee Waterway for a boat coming in from the Atlantic, at Mile 15.1 – or, as the Corps describes the same spot, approximately 15.5 miles upstream of where the St. Lucie River meets the Intracoastal Waterway. The chamber is 250 by 50 feet. It lifts from sea level to the St. Lucie Canal, normally 14.5 feet above it – the largest lift of the five locks on the waterway.

Coast Pilot 4 puts the tidal limit here: tidal influence is perceptible up to this lock and no further. About 10,000 vessels lock through in a year, roughly 91 percent of them recreational. The lock was built in 1941; the Everglades Drainage District had already built one on the site in 1925.

USACE gives the hours as 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., 365 days a year, with the last lockage beginning at 4:30 p.m. Coast Pilot 4 says instead that the five locks are operated from 0600 to 2130 daily and that operating personnel are not on duty at other hours. Both are primary sources and both stand; the page shows the USACE hours because the Jacksonville District runs the lock. The lock itself answers on 772-287-2665.

The radio channel is the second place the two sources part company. USACE publishes channel 13 for the navigation locks and channel 9 for the bridges; Coast Pilot 4 says the locks monitor VHF-FM channel 16. A lockage usually takes 15 to 20 minutes. The lock operator has full authority over the movement of boats in the lock and its approaches, requires everyone aboard to wear a Coast Guard approved life jacket, and requires engines to be turned off.

Two primary sources give this lock two depths, and they are not describing the same thing. USACE publishes "50 feet wide x 250 feet long x 10 feet deep at low water" and labels that the lock chamber. Coast Pilot 4 gives "a depth of 12 feet over the sill". The Coast Pilot also contradicts itself: one paragraph puts three of the five locks at 10 feet over the sill, and this lock, one of those three, is given 12 feet in its own paragraph further on.

There is a third figure that moves. The locks are used to discharge water from Lake Okeechobee, and Coast Pilot 4 says that while that is happening the depth over the upper sill of this lock is reduced from 13.5 feet to 8 feet. Coast Pilot 4 adds that the released water often creates high currents along the waterway, and that caution should be used when approaching the lock while it is discharging. The depths that apply on the day are the ones on the gauge at the lock.

St. Lucie South, the Corps campground on the bank, has 8 boat campsites with electric and water hookups, 9 RV and tent sites with hookups and 3 tent sites without. Crews in the cruiser sites B1 to B8 are required to sleep aboard; no tent or RV camping is allowed there. Boat and RV sites are $30 a day, tent sites $25, and a Senior or Access Pass takes 50 percent off user fees.

Booking runs through Recreation.gov or 1-877-444-6777, up to 180 days ahead and no later than 3 days ahead. Camping is limited to 14 days within a 30 day period, and that limit is shared with Ortona South further west. The campground is open year round from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., with the entrance gate closed at sunset. There is a boat ramp and courtesy dock with no launch fee, showers, restrooms and fishing piers. Coast Pilot 4 reports limited tie-up facilities at the lock itself.