Stan’s Obligatory Blog

Some years ago, I read that there is a colony of green sea turtles living in the San Gabriel River, near the power plant in Long Beach. The last time I went on the bike club ride to Seal Beach, I tried to look at the river there and see if I could see one, but I couldn’t spot any. So when I found out that Atlas Obscura was going on a tour of the Los Cerritos wetlands and to see the turtles by the power plant, I got us tickets right away.

We met at the entrance to the wetlands, right next to the San Gabriel River in Seal Beach. After a little introduction by our guides, we set off. It was about a mile of walking through the wetlands and around oil wells and such before we got to the power plant. The spot where we were going to look for turtles is right across the river from the power plant. But as we were crossing the bridge, someone spotted a turtle coming up to breathe right below us. Fortunately, I had my camera out and ready, and I snapped a few pictures before the turtle went back underwater. It looked like its shell was probably two or three feet long.

We continued on to the turtle-viewing area. Our guide spotted one turtle head coming up briefly when we got there, but the rest of the time we were there, we didn’t see any more turtles. On the way back, some people saw another turtle while we were crossing the bridge, but I didn’t see that one. So in the end, I only saw one turtle, but I did get a pretty good picture of it, so I can’t complain. This was still a pretty good adventure.