Sea Turtles

While out on Fernando de Noronha I was lucky enough to see two turtle nests hatch, one at the Praia do Boldro, the other at the Praia da Cacimba do Padre. This was not a chance encounter but one organized for the public by Project TAMAR, a sea turtle conservation organization in Brazil. Both nest openings happened at sunset, providing spectacular scenary for the little turtles to take on a brave new world in the ocean.

Both nests were green turtles, even though a variety of species inhabit the waters surrounding Fernando. The first nest had about 80 hatchlings and the second about 100.

check out this video of sea turtles racing to the ocean!

Project TAMAR monitors beaches all along the coast to mark nests, protect eggs and tag turtles. Brazil’s coast is prime sea turtle nesting real estate with 5 species of sea turtles in habiting the coastal waters of Brazil – the green, olive ridley, leatherback, hawksbill and loggerhead. Fernando de Noronha is one of the main nesting sites in Brazil for the green turtle but some of the others, hawksbill, loggerhead and olive ridley also nest there too. The waters surrounding Noronha support a large number of juvenile turtles from all species and I saw lots of little juvenile turtles while snorkeling and diving around the island.

To open the nests, the Project TAMAR group coordened off a sea turtle runway with stakes and rope, to allow people to stand on one side and watch the release and providing the sea turtles with a safe open area, free from humans to crawl towards the sea. As you can see from some of the photos, people's footprints remained in the sand from earlier in the day providing an interesting obstacle course for the turtles to get through.

Here's another video of a baby sea turtle!

Go little guys, go find your way to a salty new world!

A perfect sunset, at Praia da Cacimba do Padre, for a spectacular showing of sea turtles and waves at a tranquil time of day.