A quick summary of my turtle experience so far! My first night on the beach was amazing! I’m at  Mon Repos Sea Turtle Research Center in Queensland (near Bundaberg north of Brisbane) for a week.

The evening started out slow and then loggerhead sea turtles started coming up the beach, one, two, three. Fortunate for me they were low on experienced volunteers so all 5 or 6 of us newbies were suddenly thrown into action .  . . watching the sea turtle, collecting the eggs from her hatch once she moved off,  then digging them up, moving to a  safer nester further up above high tide line! I was just hoping to see one, not get to be part of the hands-on research! And with groups of tourists (20 to 30 people each) watching us “researchers” handle the eggs and give them each one or two eggs to carry up to the relocated nest.

We ended up staying on the beach until 1:30 am (an hour past our shift) because the turtles kept coming! We saw 3 and then the other shift took over and “processed” another 3 or 4. Of course this was really a low night – during the peak they  have 40 or 50! I seemed to do OK with the late night though I got tired at times.  But when there was action of course I perked right up!