Warm rain water dripped off my floppy Aussie hat as I watched a thirty year old mother Loggerhead turtle drop her fifth clutch of ping pong size turtle eggs into a freshly dug egg chamber on the beach at Mon Repos. Quietly in the darkness, lite by a single flash-lite I saw over a hundred eggs pile up by one by one. The ninety kilo turtle had lumbered onto the beach about thirty minutes before, dug her nesting chamber and as we arrived she started to lay. Not long after she covered the eggs by paddling sand with her flippers. Once it was all flat and tight she meandered back to the ocean.

The wonderful park rangers carefully dug the eggs out by hand to relocate them to a higher spot above the sand dunes. Each person was given two sandy eggs to transport to the new egg chamber. In total one hundred and eleven eggs were moved to the new location.

My first week in “OZ” and I am moving turtles around. I love it.