Part IV: Baby Sea Turtles

Topsail Island is a turtle sanctuary and home to the Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center. There are many many volunteers who sit at the nests all night and walk the beach every morning. I can remember as a kid when we vacationed there sitting out by the nests hoping to witness the baby turtles hatching. This year we had a nest right in front of the house! Volunteers came to clear a path just in case, but they weren't sure if there really was a viable nest or not. On our very last morning, Mom and I went outside and saw a volunteer on the beach looking around. As it turns out, they had hatched (probably only 45 minutes before we went outside) and she had found one that a crab was messing with. She scared away the crab and asked us to watch the turtle while she went to get her phone. We did everything we were told to help the little guy make it to the ocean. The babies have to walk the beach to "navigate" - the females come back to the exact same place to lay their eggs.



This is mom pushing the sand to help guide him in the right direction. This turtle seemed pretty tired and disoriented - we don't know how long the crab had him. After a while, they said we should carry him to the water and Mom got to do the job...

There's no way to know if he survived, but we're telling ourselves that we saved a baby sea turtle!

Only 1 in 1,000 survive the first year and only 1 in 5,000-10,000 survive into adulthood. With those odds, every single turtle is important. Check out the hospital's website!

You can see in these pictures how far the babies have to go to get to the ocean. They follow the light from the moon to get there. (That's why it's important not to have bright porch lights, use flashlights or take pictures with flash.)

I think the pattern that their flippers leave in the sand is so beautiful!

So maybe we didn't get to stay in the house we had planned to stay in, but if we had we would not have gotten to experience this! (We decided not to wake up Claire to see it, but she is loving watching the video I took!!)