Welcome to Fort Matanzas National Monument. My name
is Ranger Ellen with the National Park Service.
Today I'm going to tell you a story about sea turtles.
The mother sea turtle is out in the ocean in the shallows
gathering her strength getting ready ready for laying the next generation of
baby sea turtles. She was waiting for the dark of night
as the darkness fell around her left her water home the ocean and started
crawling up the beach to the dunes. It's a lot of work with
over 300 pounds of weight crawling through that sand sinking in a
little bit each time, but she had an important mission to
complete. She made it up to the base of the dune.
She started digging, but the first place she dug she found
too many plants and it was too hard to dig through, so
she moved over a little bit and this place
was just right. She was able to dig down
to where the sand was nice and moist and cool.
About a foot to two feet she dug down into the sand and started the work
of laying her eggs. Over a hundred eggs she would lay here in her egg
chamber. A hundred little baby sea turtles,
the next generation. She's very careful and meticulous as she dug out this
little chamber for her eggs, using her back flippers to scoop the
sand. Once all 100 or so of her eggs were laid,
she packed the sand carefully around that chamber,
keeping her babies safe from the predators that would come in the daylight.
She covered her her nest and she disguised it the best she could
before she started making the journey back to her ocean home. It was a longer
journey back to her ocean as the tide had gone out
in between when she had originally come out to lay her eggs and when she was
going back. The sun was just starting to come up on
the horizon as she returned to her ocean home.
Her eggs were completely covered safe and sound deep in the sand;
the next generation of sea turtles resting underneath the surface.