Welcome to the World Baby Turtles

It was a glorious afternoon. I arrived at the nest we had been watching at 4.30pm and listened with the stethoscope. One 20 second cascade of sand was heard with some crawling sounds. Over an hour later…same. And on it went for hours. Checking only once an hour and thinking the turtles were resting…but that moon might just enliven them….a girl can hope, right?

In the meanwhile one of our team members refined the trench two had dug the day before. The trench helps the turtles from wandering to porch lights, condo lights and acts as a guide for their long crawl to the beach…which is especially long since the beaches were renourished, refurbished…whatever they call it. It is a very long crawl for such tiny tots. In crowded, light-polluted areas it gives the newborns their best chance at making it to open water.

Even though my shift was officially over at 9pm I had an intuitive hunch to stay around a while. At 10pm one of our folks checked and heard very active babies. They had awakened and were busy crawling up in their nest. When I last listened at 11pm it was a constant cascade of sand…so much so that I couldn’t believe we had not had some change in the surface. Just after listening I looked and saw a very small lip of sand had formed…no greater than 1.5 inches on one side of the nest. When a friend and fellow turtle-lover joined us from her home on the beach I asked her to re-check the nest at 11.20pm. In just a few moments she was excitedly saying….hurry!! They are coming!!

Because the sand was perfectly dry and fluffy, there wasn’t a big crater until they boiled. And boil they did…..delightful loggerhead hatchlings.

I squatted just outside the nest and watched as these little darlings used the steep incline as a slide. It was perfectly beautiful, perfectly precious. I sang Happy Birthday, Happy Trails and wished them well….my usual softly-delivered welcome-to-the-world-angels speech.

While other humans were in front of TV’s or in bars or perhaps doing some job they hate in a place they like less, a sacred gift was bestowed on all who braved the late hour to witness one of nature’s miracles. I would not trade those hours for anything I know.

During the middle of the hatching, when there was a momentary lull in the action, I checked the nest and one baby was very still under a lip of sand. After all the others had vacated and were happily (hopefully) swimming in the sea, I kept tabs on the sleepy baby. A cascade here and there as well as crawling sounds were still happening and soon another baby slid down the sand slide to begin her march to the beach. There was one active baby that ‘swam’ up in the sandy nest that actually crawled over to the resting sibling and nudged her awake. Then together they took their miraculous journey to the saltwater…the journey that reverberates with healing metaphors that offer wisdom to all who are open to the teachings.

Arriving home near 3am I found myself once again feeling in sync with nature, with the cycles of life and the hope that is always birthed with a sea turtle nest exploding into life.