We will likely venture out a few more nights to do short surveys later this week, but I guess the season is just about over now. We have been out for the past few nights with no luck, no leatherbacks anywhere in our survey area.
Have you been tracking the turtles with the satellite transmitters? Aries has been really moving up north. She is currently about 600 miles (as the crow flies) north of Juno Beach and does not appear to be slowing down! I am going to put an animated map of her movements on the site in the next day or so. It is really wild to think that we tagged Aries a month ago, and now after swimming over 900 miles (based on satellite track) she is near Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.

Real quiet lately, no leatherbacks on any of our survey beaches for the last fews days. Maybe tonight?? I think tonight or Saturday will be our last survey night. Check here for updates.

Looks like Aries has finished nesting and is heading north! She is now in Georgia waters approx. 325 miles north of Juno Beach. Aries has traveled almost 750 miles since we placed a transmitter on her and it is hopefully only the beginning. I just received more data from the UCF crew and will process it in the morning, and create new maps.

Yet another wet night on the beach! Warm, very wet, and sort of miserable. But, Ixchel returned once again! Her sixth nest this season was laid in the rain a bit after 1am. I was on the north half of the beach and only saw a few loggerheads, it was a quiet night.

Not much to report last night. The night started off very rainy and it looked like it might rain all night. No observed turtles, but there were two on the south end of the survey area that were missed. The morning crew reported that they likely nested very early this morning after we quit. Better luck tonight......

Last night we had an early turtle! At about 9:30 a very large leatherback crawled out of the ocean at the north end of our survey area in Carlin Park. She was huge! Our largest turtle of the season at 168cm curved carapace length. There were lots of very excited people on the beach as I tagged and measured her. We took a vote and decided to name her "Georgia" Keep checking in for updates on this turtle.

We are getting good positions from our tagged turtles! The maps found on the site will be updated every two days as we get data from the turtles. If you have any comments or questions about the maps, please email me at chris@marinelife.org.