North Carolina is a special place for us because we get to be in nature, surrounded by wildlife, and the inspiration is limitless. This is where we fell in love with birds, where sharks became our passion, where sand revealed patterns that would remain a point of reference in our minds throughout the rest of the year and now where we had the honor of welcoming loggerhead sea turtle hatchlings to the world.  It was absolutely magical, completely unexpected and one of those memories that will last a lifetime. Let us tell you about it all.

The Souther Outer Banks of North Carolina is a beautiful place, the kind you want to come back to year after year. The turtle however prefer to come back after 20 years. Adult turtles lay their eggs on the same beach where they were born, around 20 years after their births.

Eagle-Eye Maximo discovered a lot of activity by the shore and through his inquisitive nature gathered all the intel we needed; a trench had been dug because the Loggerhead Sea Turtles were about to hatch. He found out that Loggerhead turtles lay approximately 100 eggs in a nest, that only 1 in 100 make it to adulthood, that the mother turtle leaves after laying her eggs and will never meet her hatchlings, and that Sea turtle hatchlings swim into the ocean right after hatching when they are only minutes of age. After all of this info he concluded “Turtles have great instinct and humans must be pretty bad at survival because they need their moms forever”. Amen brother.

We found out that if the sand “cratered” the time was coming. During this time the shells crack, they eat yolk and get stronger and start climbing up. The wonderful volunteers answered all our many questions. Like 100 questions. We camped out two nights right by the nest and on the first night we had not luck. The second night hatchlings came out in a “boil”, this is when about a hundred baby turtles boil up to the surface.  The next day the remaining turtles were excavated in the daylight! This was a real treat for the little ones.

The Sea Turtle Patrol makes sure that humans do not distract the turtles with lights or noise, it is very important at night for the turtles to wind the white of the surf lit up by the moonlight. If they are excavated during the daytime then you need to give the hatchlings quiet and space.

Here come the last of the hatchlings. This walk to the surf is really important, it clears their lungs, it helps them breath and work their muscles, it proves they can go in the water.

The ones that can’t make the walk to the surf have to go into buckets until they graduate from rehab at the aquarium. These are the “bucket babies”.

Very magical. Watch the sea turtle videos and the art inspired by this trip. Did you know that we found a record number of shark teeth this year, 15! Enjoy.

^ Sea Turtle Surf by Lucas

^ Sea Turtle Surf by Maximo

^ Sea Star  by Alex

^ Some of the shark teeth we found

^ Shark’s teeth by Lucas