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Blowing Rocks Preserve is a magnificent barrier island sanctuary located on Jupiter Island, between the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian River Lagoon. Blowing Rocks protects a variety of natural habitats, including beach dune, coastal strand, mangrove wetlands, tropical hammock and oak hammock.
Its rocky Anastasia limestone shoreline is the largest on the Atlantic coast. During extreme high tides and after winter storms, seas break against the rocks and force plumes of saltwater up to 50 feet skyward, an impressive sight for which the preserve was named. Find out what exactly are the Blowing Rocks?
Location
Jupiter Island, about 30 miles north of West Palm Beach.
Hours
Blowing Rocks Preserve is open to the public from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. daily, except major holidays.
Size
73 acres
How to Prepare for Your Visit
Beach access fees are $2 per person and $1 per person for Nature Conservancy members. Become a member. Admission is free for children ages 12 and under. Annual passes are also available: $37 for an individual pass and $65 for a group pass (up to six people).
Visitors to the preserve can explore a boardwalk with interpretive signs along the Indian River Lagoon, a butterfly garden with native plants, and a beachside nature trail. The Hawley Education Center contains rotating educational and art exhibits, and a series of programs and workshops is given in the on-site classroom.
To protect the preserve’s native habitats and wildlife, the following are not allowed: food, pets and spear guns.
Directions
The preserve is located at 574 South Beach Road, Hobe Sound, FL 33455-2804.
View map.
Coming from the north on I-95:
- Take Hobe Sound exit 96 and head east on Bridge Road (SR 708).
- Cross US 1 and continue on Bridge Road.
- Take a right onto Jupiter Island at the end of the road (just before the beach).
- Continue to the stop sign and bear to the left (south).
- The preserve is approximately 7 miles south and offers parking on both sides of the road.
Coming from the south on I-95:
Coming from the south on I-95:
- Take Jupiter exit 87A (Indiantown Road).
- Continue east on Indiantown Road to US 1.
- Turn north (left) on US 1 to Jupiter Inlet.
- Immediately after crossing bridge turn right on South Beach Road (CR707).
- Drive 2 miles and look for preserve sign on right. Parking is 1/2 mile ahead.
What to See: Seasonal Wildlife
Winter
Osprey, which can be observed year-round, are especially plentiful during the winter months. Palm, pine and other migrating warblers enjoy the mild winter here, as do a few ruby-throated hummingbirds. The coral bean produces its bright, red tubular flowers, while the wild poinsettia is also in bloom.
Spring
The unusual necklace pod blooms, and plentiful beach sunflowers show their bright yellow blossoms. Butterflies such as great southern whites, Cassius blues, and skippers flutter about the preserve.
Summer
In summer months, the mile of Atlantic Ocean beachfront provides important nesting habitat for imperiled sea turtles (primarily loggerheads). At night, the female turtles come ashore, climb above the high tide line, dig a hole with their flippers and lay their eggs in nests of sand. On many summer mornings, turtle tracks are clearly visible in the sand – to spot them, look for horizontal tracks in the sand that look like they could have been made by a small bulldozer or tractor tires.
The rocks and worm-rock reefs offshore offer great opportunities for snorkeling or scuba diving as well as occasional sea turtle sightings.
Please note that sea turtles and their nests are protected by federal as well as state and local laws. If you are fortunate enough to see a nesting sea turtle or hatchlings, please do not touch or otherwise harass either them or their nests.
Fall
A variety of birds migrate through the area, including warblers, offshore pelagic birds, hawks and falcons. The abundant sea grapes are fruiting, turning out grape-like clusters of berries.
Why the Conservancy Selected This Site
The story of Blowing Rocks Preserve begins in 1969, when, in a move both far-sighted and generous, residents of Jupiter Island donated 73 acres of this barrier island to the Conservancy. A rough rectangle, the preserve runs north to south for a mile on both sides of the island and east to west from the Atlantic Ocean to the dune ridge, across South Beach Road, through the sandy uplands and finally down to the mangroves standing knee deep in the brackish waters of the Indian River Lagoon.
For people interested in what south Florida’s barrier island beaches looked like before development consumed much of the shoreline, Blowing Rocks Preserve offers a glimpse into one of our state’s rarest surviving landscapes – an intact Florida dune habitat of beach sunflower and bay cedar, sea grapes and sea oats. It is the result of a large-scale restoration that began in 1985 and involved thousands of local volunteers.
Blowing Rocks Preserve now serves as a model for native plant restoration and management, and is an important site for sea turtle protection. An innovative education program shares these conservation goals with visitors and the local community.
What the Conservancy Has Done/Is Doing
The success of the restoration at Blowing Rocks is – from the Conservancy’s point of view – part of a larger conservation goal. In south Florida, one of the fastest growing areas of the state, Blowing Rocks Preserve serves as a cornerstone in a network of conservation lands up and down the Indian River Lagoon and in Palm Beach and Martin Counties.
For most people, Blowing Rocks is famed for nesting sea turtles, mangroves and manatees and for cascades of foaming sea water thrown up through the wind and wave-carved limestone shore. But the waters surrounding the preserve also harbor even more conservation challenges, especially in the face of climate change.
Florida’s reef system begins in the Dry Tortugas and curves along the Florida Keys to Miami. Though the species of corals change, the reef itself does not end until it reaches St. Lucie Inlet north of Blowing Rocks. Unfortunately, largely due to changes in sea temperature and acidity attributed to climate change, coral reefs are considered one of the most endangered natural systems on Earth.
To monitor Florida’s coral reefs, the Conservancy and its partners launched the Florida Reef Resilience Program modeled on similar reef conservation work pioneered in Australia and Hawaii. Using scientific methods, scientist SCUBA divers sample the reefs in an effort to determine, among other things, which reefs are bleaching and which ones seem more resistant to damage caused by higher water temperatures. Identifying, studying and protecting resilient coral reefs are currently the best tools we have against damage caused by climate change.
On the west side, the preserve is bordered by the waters of the Indian River Lagoon. Here, in the most species-rich estuary in the United States, the Conservancy pioneers ways to restore oyster reefs. Once abundant globally, and throughout Florida’s coastal waters, oyster reefs have been decimated by overharvesting, dredging, pollution and other causes. The Conservancy works with partners and volunteers to restore this important habitat, protect water quality and help buffer the coast. In the last few years thousands of volunteers have helped restore oyster reefs in the Loxahatchee River and Mosquito Lagoon. Find out how you can help restore oyster reefs.
The work here also informs and is influenced by other oyster restoration projects, not just in Florida, but also from Georgia to Cape Cod as well as projects along the U.S. Pacific coast. The work of the Florida Reef Resilience Program is modeled on work on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef and scientists here share information and best practices with marine scientists around the world, from Indonesia to Hawaii.
The larger lessons of Blowing Rocks are about far more than one 73-acre protected area on a barrier island. The people who donated the land 40 years ago could not have imagined what the preserve would become. It has grown and changed with the Conservancy and today it is a living conservation legacy with an influential voice in sea turtle conservation, native plant restoration, invasive plant management, estuary protection, oyster reef restoration, and on and on.
The true success of the restoration at Blowing Rocks is, in the end, both local and global, and it validates and enhances The Nature Conservancy’s conservation philosophy of using the best science in the most places to do the most good for all the world’s plants, animals and people.
Nature picture credits (top to bottom, left to right): Photo © Jeff Ripple (Blowing Rocks Preserve); Photo © Nancy Sefton (green sea turtle).
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