Turtle Release

We headed down to the beach to watch the sunset and stumbled upon the entertainment crew doing one of their turtle releases. Very cool. I've watched this before when we went to the beach in Ocean Isle, NC when I was younger, but they NEVER let you touch, let alone, hold the baby turtles!

We had to "wash" our hands with sand, so the turtles could smell the beach, not our skin.

It was kind of funny, because before they handed us our turtle, they went through a lengthy speech on how the hold the turtle properly, etc., etc. Then after we had all released our turtles, the turtle guy at the end dumped all the rest out of the cooler onto the beach. hmmm...

As if this experience wasn't cool enough, there's more. After dinner we headed to the beach again for a stroll in the moonlight. What did we stumble upon this time (almost quite literally), a sea turtle coming ashore to lay her eggs! A real live sea turtle. And it was just another couple and us that watched the whole thing! It was amazing. I really wish we had our camera with us. It was probably for the better, as we had just learned they don't like the flash and it can possibly blind them.

So, day one, and I had already released my first baby sea turtle AND helped a momma have her babies (I moved some chairs out of the way...that's helping)! AMAZING!!! I may just have to add marine biologist to my repertoire!