The Loxahatchee River is Florida's only federally designated Wild and Scenic River, a status it earned for the remarkable stretch of blackwater cypress swamp that winds through Riverbend Park west of Jupiter. Where the Loxahatchee enters the Atlantic at Jupiter Inlet, it is wide and busy with boat traffic; further inland, it narrows into a tannin-dark channel beneath canopies of ancient cypress and strangler fig, with alligators on the banks and anhingas drying their wings in the morning sun.
The best way to experience the river is by kayak or canoe. Several outfitters in Jupiter rent boats and offer guided paddling tours through the cypress sloughs of Riverbend County Park. The 9-mile stretch designated as Wild and Scenic runs from Riverbend Park to Jonathan Dickinson State Park, passing through scenery that looks much as it did long before anyone built a lighthouse at the inlet.