When I'm Not Working As Your REALTOR (which frankly is 24/7) . . . .

For several years now, I’ve volunteered with Turtle Time Inc., working with a crew of other volunteers monitoring beaches in Lee County for new loggerhead turtle nests, and hatched nests later in the season.

Turtle season kicks off April 14, and extends through August. All along the beaches in Collier and Lee County, and throughout coastal Florida, for that matter, as we move into summer you will find marked nests where sea turtles have crawled out of the sea to lay clutches of as many as 60 eggs. Female loggerhead turtles lay 3-4 clutches of eggs per season. But they don’t start laying until they are 30 years old. 

The most amazing part? They swim back to the same beaches and lay eggs within 100 yards or so from where they were hatched all those decades ago. 

Lauren and I were at day-long training with Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission in Punta Gorda last week. This training is required every two years. When we have an assigned area of beach, usually on Bonita Beach in Lee County, we walk that stretch starting around 6 am. Right at dawn before any equipment or hordes of tourists are out on the sand. We check to see if it is a false crawl (probably didn’t make a nest and lay eggs), or whether it is indeed a nest. We mark it with flags, call it in, and the more experienced individuals on the Turtle Time FWC permit come to the site, verify our findings, and then stake off the site. Latitude and longitude readings are taken, the nest is numbered, measurements are taken for distance to the waterline, and distance to the sand dunes and sea grasses. Photos are taken. 

As the summer rolls on, we get into hatching time. And then beach monitors are looking for late nests being laid, and for turtle nest hatches. 

I will write more, and publish photos, as we roll farther into season. 

Turtle Time is a fascinating organization with which to be involved, is key in Lee County to a very important conservation mission.

And MANY THANKS to the great people who have graciously taught us since we got involved in  2015 at Turtle Time. Eve Haverfield, who heads up the organization, and Lynne, Renee and Rae Ann, who have been patient in showing us the ins and outs of sea turtle conservation the past two summers. 

Please know, there is nothing so rewarding as to being out on the beach when it is barely light, and being the first people to see turtle tracks coming out of, and returning to the Gulf of Mexico. And then investigating and identifying new turtle nests. It is important.

More to come….