Happy to report that the turtles have arrived! Last night at about 1am, the first turtle to visit our beach was spotted. It was very cold and windy and I was having a very hard time riding the ATV along the beach. The sand and salt spray were just too much. At around midnight I decided to leave the beach and survey from the road with one of our night vision scopes. This method was used with decent results during the first two years of the project.
At the first stop. I spotted a huge black shape down the beach - looked good! Only half convinced that it really was a turtle, I drove a bit closer and I saw the "happy face" of a leatherback turtle!
When looking through a night scope head on at a leatherback the shape created by her head, carapace and long flippers looks like a happy face. I know it sounds stupid, but I will try to snap a photo some day and post it here.

I watched the turtle for over almost three hours as she dug an egg chamber. She wasn't a very good digger and the sand would collapse back into the hole after each dig with her giant flippers. After a while she decided she had had enough and left the beach. I made some quick measurements and gave her a pair of flipper tags. I am sure we will see her again soon and we will let you know when she is back!

I was unable to come up with a good name for her. The first person to email us at info@floridaleatherbacks.com gets to name her! Hurry up!

More tonight...