Fort Pierce, FL
Built 1942 as Naval Air Station Fort Pierce — the first US amphibious training base of WWII. Underwater Demolition Team frogmen, the direct ancestors of today's Navy SEALs, trained on these very beaches; the National Navy UDT-SEAL Museum sits five miles east. The Frogmen Trail along the airport perimeter marks the original obstacle course.
On the beach at Pepper Park, Fort Pierce — the only museum dedicated to the history of US Navy SEALs and their predecessors. Original 1942 sand-table model and obstacle course remnants from the WWII amphibious training that started here. Apollo BP-1101 training capsule on display — used by SEALs to rehearse the Apollo 11 splashdown recovery. Memorial wall for SEALs killed in action since WWII. Small, focused, and serious — five miles from KFPR.
If you fly a Piper — Cherokee, Warrior, Archer, Seminole, or M-class turboprop — your airplane was likely born at this facility adjacent to Vero Beach Regional Airport. Piper has called Vero Beach home since 1957, and the factory complex is clearly visible from the air as a cluster of hangars and assembly buildings. Completed aircraft in various stages of painting line the ramp. The Piper training center also operates here. For Piper owners, a pilgrimage to Vero Beach is the aviation equivalent of visiting a cathedral.
The Indian River Lagoon stretches 156 miles along Florida's east coast — home to over 4,300 species of plants and animals. Not actually a river but a long, narrow estuary separated from the Atlantic by barrier islands. From 1,500ft AGL, intricate patterns of seagrass beds, mangrove islands, and tidal channels create an organic mosaic in shades of emerald, jade, and teal. Dolphins are frequently visible as dark shapes cutting wakes. The lagoon connects Vero Beach (Piper country), Sebastian (skydiving), Melbourne, and Titusville (Space Coast).
At 730 square miles, Lake Okeechobee is the largest freshwater lake in the southeastern US — so large that from low altitudes over its center, you cannot see the far shore. Remarkably shallow at an average of 9 feet deep, it is completely encircled by the 143-mile Herbert Hoover Dike, built after the catastrophic 1928 Okeechobee Hurricane that killed over 2,500 people. From the air, the dike appears as an unnatural straight line separating the lake from surrounding sugar cane fields. The lake is the liquid heart of the Everglades ecosystem.