All about turtles

Dry Tortugas is famous for, among other things, turtles. There is a resident biologist whose main job is just to keep track of turtle nesting.

Yesterday we went with her to Loggerhead Key to look at some nests. About 3 days after they hatch she will dig up the nests to count the eggs and look for turtles that may be alive but didn't escape the nest. Monia and I helped dig a couple of sites (no eggs), then went snorkeling. The biologist and her helper continued looking and found 2 live turtles in another nest. We put them in the water and off they went!

Today we went to East Key. It's smaller but has lots more nests. Monia and I dug up one that had 90 hatched eggs and 5 unhatched. No turtles, but very interesting!