Sea Turtles!

The video posted above (sorry, you'll just have to look at it sideways--I don't know how to rotate it...) is of a adult female sea turtle laying eggs (52 in total) on a beach in El Salvador. Working with an ex-Volunteer who began working for a Salvadoran sea turtle rescue organization after leaving Peace Corps, I organized a trip of 14 of us Volunteers to the beach to learn more about sea turtles and why they face extinction. First, we walked up and down over 10 kilometers of beach late at night, searching out and witnessing multiple turtles come ashore, make a nest, lay their eggs, camouflage their nests, then head back to sea. The entire egg-laying process lasted about 15 minutes each time and was absolutely breathtaking and unforgettable.

After the mother sea turtle heads back out to sea, the turtle hatchery takes the eggs from the nest and brings them to their own incubation area, where there are no natural predators and the turtles' chances for survival rise substantially.

And after all of this, even later that night, we were also lucky enough to be able to participate in a baby sea turtle release. After approximately 45 days, the turtle eggs hatch and the babies make a mad, haphazard dash for the waves and in turn the deep ocean. Each of us was able to release between 5 and 10 baby turtles, who had originally been found as eggs a month and a half earlier, placing them in the sand a few meters from the tide, giving them a chance to walk on their own a bit before being swept away in the ocean's currents.

Photos were very difficult to take because any flash or bright light would disorient the turtles, but since they are partially colorblind, any red-tinted light is completely allowable. The above video came out the best and shows the enormous size of the turtles and how amazing it is to see them lay their eggs. Female, adult sea turtles weight between 75 and 95 pounds, can live to be upwards of 140 years old, laying 30 to 50 eggs in each nest (they normally lay 3 separate nests a year, every two weeks during their 6-week laying period).