WORKING ON THE RIVER

FOR RUBY TUESDAY – more from our boat trip across the state. And to see more red pictures click and visit the links on Mary's great site.

It's not all fun and games out there on the rivers.  Besides the bridge tenders and lockmasters and assorted people fishing and crabbing (OK, well, that IS fun), we also passed this boat, very slowly hauling an enormous load of pipes.  The boat is called "Miss Susan" which seems too delicate a name for this workhorse of a boat.

This picture is our two friends passing this hard worker (just to show how large it is).  That's the railing of our boat in the lower corner.   We wondered whether that boat would be going through the locks and were glad we didn't have to share space with it there.      

This is the Leitner, another workboat of a different kind.  It was tied up at one of the locks.  This one belongs to the Army Corps of Engineers. 

Here in Florida, as elsewhere, the Corps is a controversial entity.  They are the ones responsible for how much water is let into or out of the rivers through the locks and no matter what they do it isn't right for someone.  Of course they were also the force that built up Lake Okechobee in the first place, making it the second largest man-made Lake in the US.   The Lake controls flooding but it's creation drained a good part of the Everglades in the process.   Their Corps was created to build — that was its mission and it didn't used to matter if nature was destroyed in the process. Now there are some restoration activities going on, but the Lake will remain and we enjoyed our boat trip on it.  So, I guess like most Floridians and people everywhere, we have mixed feelings.