Beatrice

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In the early hours of August 26^th 2009, a turtle crawled out of the sea and deep into the bushes. After digging a nest and starting to lay, we realized she was a neophyte and proceeded to give her tags and a drill pattern to be able to identify her in subsequent seasons. WH5714 and WH5715. That was the only time we saw her, she nested and slipped back into the surf.

Fast forward to 2012. Once again the Caribbean turtle network is calling. An inquiry into were a turtle bearing the tags WH5714 and WH5715 comes from has been launched. She is ‘our’ girl. She has been found nesting on Buck Island, in the US Virgin Islands on the night of July 31^st. It is the first time a turtle tagged on Jumby Bay has been seen nesting on a different island, let alone on a small island over 300km to the west.

Interestingly she has been fitted with a satellite transmitter, tracking her every move. So far she has travelled 762 km around Buck Island and is still nesting.

So far she seems to be staying around Buck Island, but who knows, maybe she will return to Jumby?

You can follow her movements here: seaturtle.org

and find out more about Buck Island National Monument here: national park service

edit September 24th: After leaving Buck Island, Beatrice traveled towards St Kitts & Nevis, before arriving in the Cades Bay area off the coast of Antigua. At which point we were hoping she was going to come 'home'. She came north and swam past a few miles away from Jumby before heading to Guadeloupe. Very excited about her trip!

We're officially at halfway through the season, and the numbers are in!  So far we've had

54 Nesting turtles
157 Nests laid
12 Neophytes (new turtles to the project) tagged
and approximately 23,500 eggs deposited on the beach!

Hatchling season is currently going full tilt, and there are very few nights where we don't see little herds of baby turtles streaming down the beach.  Our nesting moms are slowing down a bit, but we just had a new turtle show up this week so for now JBHP is still going strong.

Ororo

It was a wild and crazy night last night here at JBHP.  Tropical storm Isaac decided to pay us a visit, and with waves up to 4 feet and wind gusts over 30mph it was looking like it would be a quiet one.  Instead, 5 different turtles stopped by to say hello!  The first of the night, WH5644, has been named Ororo after this lovely lady: Ororo Munroe

We'll post a season update soon!

Charlie

One month in!

At one month in we have seen 27 turtles with 40 nests! 5 girls are new to the nesting population and surprisingly, we have already seen 2 nests hatch - which means nesting activity started in late April!

more updates to come...