Baby sea turtles.

We had a great family beach trip -eleven people in one house!

One of the highlights was seeing three baby sea turtles emerge from the nest and make their way to sea. I'd seen a loggerhead lay her eggs when I was younger and I saw the lifecycle completed watching these little Kemp's Ridley (a rare find in NC) skibble into the Atlantic.

I went up the dune to check the nest around 9:30 that morning with my nieces Kate and Alice. We were about to turn around when I saw something that appeared to be moving in the sand. Under closer inspection, I realized it was a baby sea turtle!

The poor little guy was on his back, so I flipped him over while my mom called the phone number listed on the nest, aka Charlie the turtle man. There were about 8 of us watching as he crawled instictively toward the water -he knew exactly what to do!

By the time Charlie the turtle man arrived, our little friend had already made his way out to sea.

Charlie proceeded to dig up the rest of the nest, in case there were any stragglers. Judging from the tracks surrounding the nest, the other 102 turtles had hatched during the night.

He found two little turtles that were very sandy and slightly overwhelmed -by this point, around 25 people had gathered on the beach to watch their descent. But they made it!