The Baby Sea Turtles and The Tourists at Fort Morgan

This week has been such a different one for us and our visitors at Sunset Properties. It has been a very rainy week which cut down on their Sunny Beach Vacation. All the wind and rain allowed for some unique experiences for our visitors. Many who live and work here in the Dunes Community and across the Alabama Coast volunteer with the Share The Beach Program. This program monitors Alabama beaches for Sea Turtle nests and also monitors those nests for hatching babies later in the season. We are still finding nests in this record year of 45 found on Ft. Morgan Beaches alone. It is also time for hatch baby turtles. This is always a fun time for us and any visitors to the area who may have a chance to see these amazing little creatures. I met a couple who had just this experience this week.
A group of Volunteers were monitoring a nest for several nights. In fact is was a false crawl which is where we mark what seems to be a nest but we never actually found the eggs after they were laid. Of course during monitoring if a storm begins to come up we are told to always leave the beach especially if we hear thunder or see lightening. At the beginning of the week we would sit until about 8:30 or so waiting on turtles and a storm would roll in each night chasing us off of the beach. Some of our visitors are braver than all of our seasoned volunteers.
A sweet couple who have visited with us several times and were so curious about the turtles were out on the beach just before the storm. They had the stopped by faithfully each night to see what was going on and if we had any activity. They had lots of great questions and were so excited. As we were heading off of the beach because of the up coming storm the were heading out to the beach. We must have crossed paths and not even realized it. When the got down to the nest they found baby turtles everywhere. They jumped immediately to action and guided the turtles with a flashlight to the water, one after another. They helped about 50 turtles to the water.
Not knowing that we don't really use flash to take pictures of the turtles, they were able to get some great pictures as you can see. Once they got to the board walk to head back to their condo they actually found a few more turtles that had been confused by the lights on the beach houses. They helped these little turtles to the water too.
This couple Lindsey Gore and Ryan Polk are my hero's. They set aside their personal safety to help these baby Logger Head Turtles for all of the volunteers. 120 baby turtles made it to the water out of this nest due in big part to Lindsey and Ryan. Thanks so much guys. Can't wait to see you next year..