Be Strong Baby Turtle

Working with the Turtle Patrol this season has been one of the most rewarding, exhilarating, sometimes sad, but also one filled with a lot of aw-w-w-w moments. Watching this little guy head off to sea was one of those aw-w-w moments.

After 60 days and much tidal over-washing, my last assigned nest finally had an emergence, i.e. the baby turtles hatched and emerged from their clutch to head to life in the Atlantic Ocean. Three days after that event we evaluate the success of the nest by digging it out to count the eggs that hatched (78 on this one); check for unhatched eggs and to see if there are any baby turtles who are still alive and for whatever reason unable to escape. 
This particular nest had two live babies and after I freed them, headed off to sea to hopefully grow and thrive and maybe in 20+ years come back to this beach to lay a new clutch of eggs and start the process all over again. 
Mother Nature is truly marvelous, she has been doing this with turtles for more than 25 million years. Amazing.