It Really Happened!

I borrowed this picture from Ann Holmes.  I, of course, did not have my camera with me this morning!  But, it really happened!  We had just started out of the condos this morning for our morning walk.  We were walking along the beach, but up a ways more inland and not right on the waters edge.  I just happened to look down and there he/she was!  A sea turtle hatchling that looks just like the one you see in Ann's hand here.

The turtle was headed in the wrong direction.  It was around 7:00 am and the sun was already climbing up in the sky.  The hatchling will follow lights - trying to find it's way to the sea.  This hatchling was going in the wrong direction - it was going inland towards the sun instead of the sea.

I knew what to do from our experience a year ago when we were invited to watch a whole box full of hatchlings being released to the sea.  I went close enough to the water's edge, but still a distance away - and put the little hatchling down.  It was so cute to watch him.  He was tired from all his digging out of the sand that his mother had buried him in, some 50 days earlier.  But, I could tell he was sensing the sea - and he made the extra effort to get to it.  A wave came along and brushed some water under his flippers - and oh boy, that gave him renewed strength.  Away he went into the sea.

This has been a dream of mine since we have lived here - to walk up on hatchlings - in the wild - naturally.  It was very exciting.  Interestingly, once we headed back up the beach to walk, we ran upon another one!  I would have loved to know where the nest was - but, couldn't see any mound that looked like it had a lot of turtle shells that had just hatched.

As you can see from this picture of the boardwalk, there is a lot of great sand and foliage for turtles to nest in. By the way, we ran into Keith again this morning (you remember, the coconut man).  We always say "Morning" to him - but, he will not say it back to us - he always says instead "Respect".  So, I guess we will start saying "Respect" to him each morning that we see him.  :)

I haven't posted in a week and so here are some other tidbits:

We were coming back from the beach last Saturday and we saw a street sign on the side of the road that said, "Weeding Ahead".  I didn't get a picture of this, but we are amused with the wording of this countries' road signs.  I had in my blog from last Christmas a sign that we came upon that said, "Men in Trees".  Then, there are the signs that state "Road Hump Ahead".

We walked up to a newspaper vender this morning and asked him for Wednesday's paper.  He said, "What?"  I asked for Wednesday's paper - again and again.  Finally, he said - oh, you mean Yesterday's paper!  ;)

This picture was taken last Saturday.  I do not know what this is called, but we see it from time to time.  It looks like someone is standing on a surf board and just paddling through the water.  It looks like fun but also a lot of work.  I think I will just watch them from the shoreline.