Tales from the Reef: The first green turtle nest of 2013

Yesterday morning I received a call earlier than usual. A turtle had been spotted on North beach…. I was out of bed and out the door in a flash but sadly not quick enough. By the time I arrived the turtle had disappeared into the sea. She left lots of tracks all over the beach though so it must have been a long night. Coming up the beach can be quite exhausting for her, a turtles flippers are ideal for the sea but not really for the land!! And after all her effort coming up the beach we didn’t find any nests…. We call this a "false crawl" - the female has attempted to nest but returns to the water without laying her eggs.

Not good for the turtle as it meant she would have to return to the beach again to lay another nest that she failed to lay before, but good for me as fingers crossed I might actually get to see a turtle nesting on the beach, a sight I have yet to see. However, there are 12 beaches at Reethi Rah and although turtles usually nest on the same beach, she could easily nest on another beach on the island especially when there are 12 to choose from, so it was best to check them all.

We started at 1230am first checking the beach were she made a false crawl the night before but no signs of a huge green turtle. We found tracks on the last beach we checked, Sunrise beach, but unlucky for us there were tracks coming out of the sea and tracks going back in. She had escaped us again…. we were gutted to say the least. Even worse we think we missed her by just half an hour!! The question is though… Did she leave a nest this time?? Yes she did :) Behind the villa in the bushes, Wade, my turtle nest finding expert, managed to find her nest. The turtle had made a huge mess so it was hard to locate it with all the sand everywhere. There were only 50 eggs in the nest so this would have been the last nest she laid for the season. Turtles generally lay 2 or 3 nests during a nesting season with the last nest having fewer eggs. We carefully took the eggs and have relocated them to another beach were they can be monitored more closely. We expect them to hatch within 50-60 days so more sleepless nights to come but it is so worth it...