A Dream Come True

The first time I saw a turtle nest was on Pompano Beach, Florida. It was roped off with yellow security tape and a sign that said $50,000 fine for disturbing a turtle nest. I was intrigued and read up on how turtles come back thirty years later to the original site where they were hatched to nest and lay their eggs.

Several years later a magazine on Sanibel Island had a picture of little turtles trekking across the sand to reach the ocean. I became determined to see baby turtles. But it didn't happen. So Jackie Willits and I staged a turtle trek with little glass turtles that we bought at the Bubble Room gift shop on Captiva. I took pictures. It made me laugh whenever I saw it. Later Ari played baby turtles in a bowl of sand using the little glass turtles.

This year when we arrived on Anna Maria Island we checked in The Seaside Resort at 3:00 on September 15. We asked the girl at registration if she knew anything about sea turtles. Fifteen minutes after we went to our room, she brought a Facebook page to us that had just popped up on her account. It said that at 7:30 that very evening there would be a sea turtle nest excavation on the beach at the end of 6th Street. Wow!

So at 6:30 we headed out to find the sea turtle nest. It turned out to be the second ever green sea turtle nest on Anna Maria Island. Most are Loggerheads. Volunteers walk the beach daily looking for turtle tracks and mounds of sand indicating a turtle has just laid her eggs. They rope off the area and put a stick that has the date it was found. The turtles usually hatch 60 days later. They put a cage over the nest to keep birds and animals from getting to the eggs. The nests are monitored near the time the turtles are expected to hatch. Three days later they excavate the nest.

The excavation is to count the number of empty egg shells and look for remaining turtles that may have not been strong enough to make it up to the surface. We got to see three little turtles that were brought up out of the foot deep hole and they were perfectly healthy. I wanted to pet one. But you have to be licensed to touch one of them or you will be fined. So we just enjoyed watching them. It was a dream come true.