The Hatchling at South Padre Island 7:00AM

The drive to South Padre Island!!!




This morning I woke up at about 5:40 and started getting ready and brought my little brother with me to experience this wonderful, beginning of life for these sea turtles. I barely made it on time to see them come out of their nest. I forgot how hard it was to walk on sand. Boy was I running like there was no tomorrow. When I finally was able to view this experience, it was from a distance and slowly but surely I was able to get closer to take some wonderful pictures. Then a lovely volunteer asked if I wanted some better close-ups so how am I going to say no to that. She took my camera and took quite a few shots that I will always keep. I approached one of the volunteers at Sea Turtle Inc. and asked them how many turtles were being hatched. She said there were 120, which was quite a bit compared to some of the hatchlings nests I saw online, which were about 60-80.

I learned from this experience that it takes 2 days for the turtles to get out of their shell. Then at about 5:00 AM this morning is when all turtles were completely out of their shells. That is when they were released at 7:00AM. I took tons of photos and will be trying to post them so I can share them with everyone. Slowly taking little baby steps with their arms and feet they made it into the water. I was able to get a video of a few of them and then of another one who was trying to make it into the water. I asked one of the volunteers, what happens to the turtles when they are in the water? Do they swim together or do they swim off individually and live life alone? She mentioned to me how they all go their separate ways and they don’t stay in groups.

Towards the end, all the turtles made it out into the water except for one. He tried with all his might to get in that water. Every time he thought he was close, water would come ashore, then go back, in turn would push him farther back and leave him behind. I was able to get a picture or two of him trying to make it into the water. That was so amazing to view and I am happy that I was able to experience it. That was the end of the hatchling and now had to wait a few hours to go to the Sea Turtle facility to view a presentation along with attending a feeding.