Night Walk 6/24 - A SUCCESS!

Following the presentation, it was a short but sweet walk to find a nesting turtle! Our volunteers, Lea and Derek, were already on the beach helping to save some nests which were washing away from the King Tide. Just as we were about to go out on the beach and join Lea and Derek, they reported over the radio, that a turtle was up and was laying eggs!

We took the short walk to join them to witness a loggerhead sea turtle laying her eggs! Although the sky was a little cloudy, the full moon still provided a lot of light out on the beach. We watched her cover her nest and then return to the ocean, a sight that no participant had yet witnessed! Everyone was overjoyed to see a sea turtle and was shocked by the sheer size of her. 

The following morning on dawn patrol we only found one new nest and one false crawl, which means we saw the only nest of the night! Our sea turtle intern, Karoline, and our volunteer, Bob, safely relocated this nest to a safer location since it was too low to the tide line. They carefully moved 116 eggs to a newly dug chamber. This nest is now marked as 122 on our beach! See below for pictures taken during the dawn patrol.