Last weekend our wonderful SO coordinators this term (Katie and Stephanie) arranged for a huge group of us (about 60 + people) to head north to hopefully see some turtles lay their eggs. This had been on our bucket list of things to do before we left so we were super excited that the SOs would be putting on the event and Nick arranged his entire week schedule around it. There were 2 huge buses full of people and a tiny cab- which we were in and later named the party cab- as there were only 8 of us in it and we were blasting music, playing games, and overall just being rowdy. Our driver was great and cruised along and was willing to make random stops whenever we wanted! The time flew by and we were at the beach before we knew it!
Leatherback turtles are the largest turtles on Earth and as adults can grow to as long as 7 feet and weigh over 2,000 lbs! They are huge! Leatherback turtles can also dive deeper than any other turtle, going as deep as 4,200 feet and are able to stay down there for up to 85 minutes. Talk about holding your breath eh? The ritual of nesting/laying their eggs is extremely cool. The mama turtles come to shore (they return to their same nesting area) in the evening and begin to dig a hole in the sand. Once the hole is deep enough she begins to lay her eggs (often depositing around 80 eggs- a mix of real eggs and fake/filler eggs.) Once the eggs are safely in the nest she begins the process of covering them back up. THEN as if that wasn't enough work, she will normally dig several "fake nests" and disturb the sand near the nest to make it difficult for predators to detect the nest filled with her eggs. After all that, she can finally call it a night and return back to the water.
At the beach there are researchers and trained professionals who monitor the beach and scope out the turtles who are making their way onto the beach and then lead small groups to watch the process. It is really cool! Before actually stepping foot on the beach, they give you a little information about the turtles and give very careful instruction of the "dos and don'ts" of turtle watching. Once on the beach it is a waiting game waiting for the turtles to make their grand entrance! We had been warned that it could take a while before they were spotted so we were all prepped with food, drinks, and things to entertain ourselves. It was a very nice night, although overcast, so this made the beach even darker than normal. It took about 2.5 hours before we were alerted that several turtles (I think we passed by 6 before getting to "our" turtle) had made their way to the beach to begin laying their eggs.
Each small group was taken to a different turtle where we were able to get quite close and even touch the turtle's shell. When she is laying her eggs, she enters a zen-like state/trance and therefore is not aware or bothered by people, which allows us to be up and close and personal (literally.) Super cool! The biggest "don't" was that we were not allowed to use flash photography because this can hurt the turtles and take them out of their trance. Luckily however, one of the SOs who is very talented with her awesome camera was able to snap several amazing shots even without her flash being on! Trust me, even though it looks bright in some of these pictures below- it was pitch black out there!
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All photos taken by an SO- Allison Gray! A few of the pictures show the red lights that were allowed on the beach and for us that was what it looked like- VERY dark, with little red lights everywhere. It's so great Allison was able to capture these pictures even without her flash being on! Aren't these turtles so beautiful and amazing!? |
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