By Paul Quinlan at the Palm Beach Post:
From the deck of an airboat floating atop Lake Okeechobee, Paul Gray can see all the way to the bottom, through 5 feet of crystalline water where bass, crappie and swarms of minnows dart through a wavy lattice of lush hydrilla. "This is just gorgeous - it's what you hope the lake looks like," said Gray, a soft-spoken scientist from Audubon of Florida.
All too often, the state's largest lake is either too full or too empty, encircled as it is by a three-story-tall dike beneath Florida's fitful, drought-or-downpour skies. High water renders the lake a choppy, murky mess. Drought can turn its shallow western fisheries into weed-choked prairies.
This may be short-lived, but Lake Okeechobee is in rare form today. It has rebounded perfectly from the 2004 hurricanes and the record-breaking, two-year drought that began in 2006. "This is the second time in 15 years it's been this nice," Gray said. In the northwestern shallows, American lotus sprout flowers as big as softballs and floppy green leaves the size of sombreros. Tiny white apple-snail eggs cluster on the green stems of needle rush and bulrush.
Dark green clumps of periphyton algae float on the glassy surface like cooked spinach, forming the base of a teeming food chain that has made the lake one of the best fishing destinations in the United States. It is also the last stop for more than 270 species of migratory birds on their way to the Caribbean and South America.
