Our Executive Director Eve Samples traded her desk for a kayak this month to bring you your Voice of the Everglades update:
My favorite stretch of Atlantic shore is best accessed by boat. From the Intracoastal Waterway in Hobe Sound, look for a lone coconut palm rising high above the treeline. Head east toward that mark, then hop off your vessel and pad barefoot through the seagrape tunnel. On the Atlantic side of the dune, you’ll see more shorebirds and sea turtle nests than people. What you won’t see no matter which way you look: buildings.
This protected beach is part of the Hobe Sound National Wildlife Refuge — the largest contiguous undeveloped beach in southeast Florida. It exists because of the late Everglades advocate Nathaniel Reed, whom I had the honor of knowing and learning from. It’s adjacent to St. Lucie Inlet Preserve State Park, another pristine waterfront that was saved from development by the late Everglades icon Maggy Hurchalla, a close adviser to Friends of the Everglades until her death in 2022.
When I visit these sacred places, I think about what could have been: condo canyons; asphalt everywhere; drain pipes struggling against a rising sea. Instead, I find restorative solitude. It reminds me of the magic that endures across the ecosystem that Friends of the Everglades is working to protect.
This summer, as we face tumult in the news and discord in every social media feed, I’m feeling especially grateful for these protected swaths of nature. They have survived because of people like Nathaniel and Maggy, and people like you who are part of the movement to protect what remains. These places will save us, if we let them — and that’s the strongest case for saving them.
What’s your favorite patch of nature? Email us at info@everglades.org to let me know. I promise to respond to all the messages, and I hope you don’t mind if I join you out there.
For the Everglades,
Eve Samples
P.S. Watch the video above for a glimpse of another one of my favorite places to escape, Riverbend Park in Jupiter.
