BABY TURTLES

It's time for some warm fuzzies.  I know turtles aren't half as cute as bunnies, puppies and kittens but when there is a whole pool full of them you just can't help but say "AWWWWWWWW".

One of the side effects of hurricane Irene has been all the baby sea turtles washed out of their nests on the beach. We lost our dear turtle Andre early this week. He was found dead, washed up on a beach just north of here this past Monday. He was the giant sea turtle that we adopted for Smith for his birthday. Andre had been in the Loggerhead Marine Center here in Juno Beach for over a year while they nursed him back to health. He was released 3 weeks ago but for what ever reason he just couldn't make it back out in the ocean. I was feeling very sad about Andre so today when Ger wanted to get out for a while we took a ride to the beach and walked along the side walk above the ocean. The waves are quite large for Florida but nothing like the ones we used to see on Long Island. The beach had some people on it and there was a really good breeze blowing to help cool everyone off.  It was delightful for walking but not good at all for all the turtle nests.
This is nesting season for a couple of different species of turtles here in Florida. They have laid their eggs a while ago and this is the time for the baby turtles to hatch. With the surf washing up higher than usual on the beach the nests are being washed away before they babies are ready to make their journey. People are picking the babies up off the beach and out of the rolling surf. The poor little things are exhausted from the pounding surf and the hot sun and would become bird food if not helped by kind humans.
After our walk Ger and I went out on the Juno Beach Pier to see what was going on out there. Only a couple of fishermen and not many fish.  The water is just too stirred up. We then decided to check out the turtle park as it is known to the locals. As we arrived at Loggerhead there was a family arriving with a bucket  with a dozen baby turtles in it. Following them was a woman with a turtle in her hands. They took the babies to a shallow pool where there were 3 volunteers introducing the baby turtles to water. The volunteers had 2 kiddie pools filled with wet sand and a hundred or more turtles. It seems that when the baby turtles first hatch they may not be ready to swim so the volunteers have to put each turtle into the water, one at a time, to see if the little guy will sink or swim! For the little ones who hatched too soon they are introduced to the water on a float that keeps them wet but on the surface. It is quite a thing to see. (Guess who didn't have their camera's with them!) There was one volunteer who's job it was to keep circling the tank to look for turtles who were too exhausted to stay above water to breathe. And you think the life guards on the beach have a tough job! 500 little baby turtles all climbing and swimming on top of each other and you have to keep track of those that are drowning. Sounds like a bad day at the community pool to me.