The Gumbo Limbo Environmental Complex is located in the 2000 block of north Ocean Blvd., in Boca Raton, Florida, right across the street from the ocean. Their marine biologists and volunteers (often marine biology students from Florida Atlantic University) patrol the beaches, monitoring seaturtle nestings and other marine life. They maintain marine tanks where seaturtles and stingrays (some who couldn't survive alone in the ocean) are cared for. There is a long boardwalk that meanders through dense, uncultivated vegetation, allowing visitors to stroll through while leaving undistubed the tangled growth and lifeforms it sustains. The large lobby doubles as a museum with a lot of artifacts. Summers are filled with kids camps and nightly events including guided turtle walks along the beach. There is technically no admission to enter and enjoy this beauty. A donation of two dollars per person is requested but not required.

The middle picture shows a huge statue of a seaturtle. Behind it you can see the tops of two of the marine tanks. The star of these photos, Shelby, an orange-toned, three-year-old (in 2003) seaturtle, lives in the farmost left tank. Update: Gumbo Limbo suffered a lot of damage during the 2004 hurricanes. At one time, they went eight (8) straight days without power. Many of their marine mammals, those that were able enough, had to be released. With an already damaged facility and another hurricane approaching, one of their marine biologists, Dr. Rusenko, took Shelby and the other seaturtles to his home and cared for them there, further from the ocean. He put them in trays and kept them covered with wet towels until the danger was past. I'm told Shelby is doing great. I haven't seen her in 2 years, she has probably grown a lot since these pictures were taken. May 2012 update: I haven't spoken with Gumbo Limbo to verify this, but it looks to me like Shelby is featured on their website (click on their link at top of page). It really looks like her. If it is, she is nine years old now.

The picture above-center is especially wonderful of the tetrahedron, but the photo on the right is the most interesting in this row, perhaps on the entire page, showing multiple views of branching. It shows many branches growing upward, toward the sky, while others are growing straight down into the watery ground. There are some beautiful examples of ternary branching in this same photo, where three branches come off each joint. There are many roots near the bottom of the picture making beautiful arcs into the soil. The twisting seen in some of the upper branches rivals the flowing beauty of ribbons. Of all the pages on my site, this is the page to try to enlarge every photo for the closest possible look. There will usually be either an exceptional view of the tetrahedron, or something revealing and dramatic to see in the Nature it is set in.

The tree above-center was so stunning that I had to include it on the page. There are lots of trees like this all over the complex. (There is another such tree in the next row up, far-left photo, where the entire trunk is covered by exterior branches wrapped around it.) The pictures in this row were all taken in a swampy area. The front side of Gumbo Limbo faces Ocean Blvd., and the ocean is on the opposite side of the street. The back side of the complex is bounded by a wide waterway. These photos were taken about 50 feet from the back side where if you look down from the boardwalk, the waterway is encroaching on the property, and some of the ground is pretty wet.

I included the left photo mainly because it shows a good view of the boardwalk. The huge yet typical-sized palm leaf fanned out in the middle picture is an example of how BIG plants grow in Florida. A normal-sized plant in Florida would be a gigantic plant in Arizona. Many leaves are big enough to wrap a baby in, and their Vegetation thrives even during the heat of summer. The above-right photo, although not particularly revealing about Gumbo Limbo, shows what I think is a stunning view of the tetrahedron, because of the light and the line of the tetrahedron following the line of the adjacent tree trunk. It is also nice when part of the structure is hidden from view. You can see how it is hanging on the stump of a broken-off limb.

These photos were taken from the other end of the back side of the complex, looking out on the waterway that I referenced above, but on the other side of the marine tanks. There is a big butterfly garden nearby, and some cultivated plants. Visitors walk on dry ground along trails in this area. When I got to this part, it wasn't a good time of day to take pictures, so even though there is a considerable amount of ground to cover and things to see, I don't have many photos of it. There are three main sections, Florida as it used to be where growth is uncultivated and visitors walk through on the boardwalk, the marine tanks with seaturtles, stingrays and other marine creatures, and the cultivated section where the butterfly garden is located.

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