Night Walk 7/1 - A SUCCESS

We had a long walk and a late night walk but it was filled with turtle encounters! We witnessed the first turtle returning to the ocean after false crawling. Then this same turtle that later got the nickname "shark bite" due to the large chunk missing from her left rear carapace, tried crawling ashore again. We witnessed her from a distance false crawl for the second time. We are not sure why she was completing false crawls as there was no disturbance to her, I guess she was just looking for that right spot!

Then as we walked down the beach a little further, we witnessed a turtle returning to the ocean after successfully completing a nest! This nest had to be relocated in the morning as she nested below the Spring high tide line.

After reaching the inlet, no other turtles were seen nesting but on the way back we got to see a nesting turtle! At this point, it was past midnight and we were all feeling pretty sleepy and tired but we powered through with the excitement of a nesting turtle. We watched as she laid her eggs, covered and then returned to the ocean.

In the morning, we had 4 new nests and 4 false crawls. The nest we saw is marked as nest 140 on our beach. See below for more pictures taken from the dawn patrol team!