Finally....

So it finally happened, the third and final nest that we have all been waiting for hatched in the early hours of the morning on the 11^th October, at 3am to be precise! Altogether 151 green turtle hatchlings crawled out of the nest.  It was amazing to watch as one by one these cute little fuzzy things emerged from the nest, a head would appear and then a body as they pulled themselves free, and then another and another, they were starting to pile up on top of each other trying to break free! They looked fuzzy as their bodies were completely covered in sand! Just thinking about it now makes me smile. 

As the moon was absent we used torches to light their way to the sea instead. They followed the light and made a mad dash for it, as they got closer they seemed to get faster as well like they sensed the ocean was close, it was funny to watch as they almost skipped and jumped themselves to the sea. It is widely believed that hatchlings imprint the unique qualities of their natal beach while still in the nest and/or during their first trip from the nest to the sea. Therefore it was important that we let them run down the beach to the sea. Otherwise they might not know how to return back to the beach to nest when they are adults. As they entered the water we collected them all and then we will release them in a few days on the outside of the atoll were hopefully they will have a better chance of survival. Although the majority of them will probably perish, hopefully one or two will make it to adulthood and then return to Reethi Rah in the future to lay more nests. This is a remarkable fact about sea turtles. They will always return to the lay their nests on the same beach were they were born decades before. Although i think i might have mentioned that before!

I finally got back to bed at 630am but I couldn’t sleep as I was so wired from what had just happened. I just got to witness one of nature’s incredible events, words can't quite describe it, it was amazing, beautiful, and almost quite surreal (probably because of my lack of sleep) but it was definitely something that I will never forget! Out of the many photos I took I have uploaded some of the best ones to share with you. Even though you weren’t there to see this I’m sure these photos will make you smile, 151 cute baby turtles, who couldn’t not smile! Enjoy and hopefully next year we will get to see it all over again!