Turtle hatching

About seven to eight weeks after nesting, the dune comes alive: dozens of palm-sized hatchlings boil out of the sand, usually after dark or in the cool of early morning, and make a desperate sprint for the ocean. Only a small fraction will survive to adulthood, which makes watching a clutch vanish into the surf one of the most moving wildlife moments on the coast.

The hatchlings are the same species that nest here — mostly green turtles, with loggerheads and the odd hawksbill. They find the sea by heading toward the brightest, most open horizon (naturally the moonlit ocean), which is exactly why any artificial light is so dangerous. That short crawl across the sand also lets them imprint the cues they’ll use to navigate back decades later.

Hatching overlaps the back end of nesting, so on a good summer night you might see both nesting females and emerging hatchlings on the same beach near Jurabi.