Sea Turtle Walk

Last night we went on a sea turtle walk - or at least, we attempted to. We showed up at the Barrier Island Center at 9:00 and listened to a 45 minute presentation on the turtles. It was actually a lot more interesting and informative than I expected, and the guide did a great job making it interesting for both adults and older kids. While we were in the presentation, volunteer scouts started walking up and down the beach a mile in either direction, looking for a nesting turtle. They didn't find any before the presentation was over, so we all moved out to the boardwalk and waited for them to radio in. I started to lose hope at about 10:15, but the guide said that the scouts would keep looking until midnight because you never know when the turtles will come up. We waited on the boardwalk until midnight but sadly the scouts never found any nesting turtles. Still, I'm glad we did it because I did learn a lot and at least I know we tried. We'll have to do this again some other year. Our guide said this was her 12th or 13th walk of the summer, and this was only the second night that they didn't see any turtles. In fact, sometimes the tour groups even get to see more than one turtle laying her eggs.

If you're near Melbourne Beach and you think you might be interested, they do the walks on Tuesdays and Wednesdays in June and July. They start taking reservations on May 1, and they fill up FAST! You pay $10/person when you make the reservation, and if you don't show up then that money stays as a donation for the center. Make sure you take bug spray with you - there were TONS of mosquitoes and other things that bite on those dunes. I'd also recommend long pants and sleeves because the bug spray doesn't keep everything away. We actually ended up sitting in our car for part of that wait until midnight because we were getting eaten alive! Still, I'd recommend this and I plan to try again.

This is what we had hoped to see!