turtle watch

Friday evening, Anders and I were guests of the 3rd Grade Class at The Good Hope School for their annual turtle watch.  We arrived at school at 7:30pm and drove out to Sandy Point with teacher Ditty Layton and several other eager watchers.  Upon arrival at the Wildlife Refuge, we were introduced to the finer points of turtle watching and proceeded to drive through the gates to the parking lot. 

We walked in complete darkness to the beach.  It was amazing how easy it was to see with all the bright white sand.  The sky was incredible.  While we waited on the beach, Jennifer, the Park Ranger told us stories of sea turtles and before we knew it, nearly 3 hours had passed.  At approximatley 10:45pm Jennifer asked us to pack up our gear and we were going to drive to the main beach where a Momma Leatherback had emerged and started the ritual of laying her eggs.  We hurried to the cars when Jennifer heard of another Momma coming out of the sea to build her nest.

We got to our vehicles, drove to the spot and started walking to the nesting spot.  Several times, we tripped as we walked through nests that had been previously established.  Jennifer assured us we were ok walking on them as 1000 pound turtles walk on them daily.  We arrived to watch both turtles disguising their nests.  At nearly midnight, we watched as the two big ladies pulled their bodies back to the Atlantic and re-entered their true home. 

We walked back to our vehicles to learn that yet another turtle was starting to build her nest just yards from where we had just observed the amazing ritual. 

To date, there are over 100 nests on Sandy Point and this will continue until mid June.  60 days after laying, those baby leatherbacks will start emerging from their nests and entering the Caribbean Sea. 

photo from google images...no photography was allowed on our turtle watch as we didn't want to confuse the mothers.