Turtle Walk

On June 11th we went to the "turtle walk" at Gumbo Limbo Nature Center in Boca. It starts around 9pm, with an educational turtle talk in one of the classrooms. While this is occuring, the turtle experts are riding up and down the 3 miles or so of Boca beaches looking for any mommy turtles that come ashore to lay thier eggs. if they spot any, they radio Gumbo Limbo to let them know and tell them where. then everyone at the talk gets in thier cars and caravans over to the spot. there is not always a turtle sighting. Luckily, on our night there was! It was at Red Reef Park. We had to run from the car after parking to keep up...as everyone wanted to get there quickly to see the turtle before she finishes laying her eggs. You walk along the water line until you get to the turtle. She was closer to the dunes. We got to get up RIGHT next to the turtle! We arrived just in time to see her laying the very last of the eggs. then we watched for maybe another 20-30 minutes as she buried and disguised the nest. Eventually she turned around and made her way back to the ocean and she mysteriously disappeared as she swam away.



This was a loggerhead turtle, the most common type spotted in this region. After she swam away, we saw two more turtles nesting nearby! One was a less common green turtle...you are not allowed to go near them as they nest.