Visit Gumbo Limbo to see some leatherbacks.
Gumbo Limbo Nature Center is one of those local treasures that you may miss if you don’t slow down and visit.
Nestled off of A1A near Red Reef Park in Boca Raton, Gumbo Limbo is beautiful and if you are looking to reconnect to nature and experience a different Boca, this is the place.
We used to go to Gumbo Limbo years ago, when the kids were little or when we had visitors with children. It was a pleasant way to spend a few hours, visiting the marine life, walking the boardwalk and gazing at the marine life in the aquariums.
But we hadn’t been there in years, so we jumped at the chance to go with a friend to witness a sea turtle hatchling release event recently.
It was a blast.
An educational and thrilling blast. We even met founder Gordon Gilbert which was a real honor.
We highly recommend you go if you have an opportunity and we also urge you to get involved if you are so inclined.
Sea turtles are amazing.
There are three types of turtles who hatch on our shores and all three species are in peril.
Loggerheads, leatherbacks and greens nest and hatch here and they face long odds to live to maturity—about 1,000 to 1. That’s not a typo.
Between predators—foxes, raccoons, birds and sadly people—hatchlings have to cope with pollution, warming sands in Boca (which are creating an astounding 95 percent female population) and natural hazards as they swim miles to their nursery in the Sargasso Sea.
When you attend a sea turtle event you learn these things from a very informative and dedicated marine scientist. You come away from the experience as an advocate. It’s hard not to get caught up in the hatchling’s plight and to draw some parallels to life itself.
Watching the little turtles work their way to the ocean— pushed back by the tide, veering off to the seaweed, wandering toward the artificial light from the Deerfield pier or the cars on A1A is alternately thrilling and sobering.
Thrilling because it’s so beautiful to see these little ones scampering in the sand where if they beat the odds and make it they will spend 20 years at sea before returning to the sand.
And sobering because of those long odds made worse by human pollution such as plastic that they often choke on or get entangled.
It may sound silly but when you see the hatchlings rush to the sea you can’t help but draw a parallel to our own existence.
Life presents so many obstacles, we’re so fragile and yet life is immensely beautiful.
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