Sea Turtles 🐢 Part 2: Laying Eggs on the Beach

Sunset on Ostional Beach, Costa Rica. A sea turtle returning to the ocean after laying her eggs on the beach. Whitney took this magnificent photo!

On Saturday we received word that the turtles had arrived! Which means some unknown signal had occurred and now all the turtles that were swimming out in the ocean were arriving en masse on the beach to lay their eggs. We went to the beach that night to watch and loved it so much that we returned the next day to watch again! The guides were amazing, and the pictures give you a sense of it. It was like being in a David Attenborough “Earth” special, everything was happening around us as we quietly moved on the beach with our guide.

On Saturday we were on the beach from ~5-6pm and on Sunday there was a delay by the government agency who runs the reserve so our tour was after sunset (~6-7pm). We almost bailed out of night two as the delay dragged on and we imagined our clan going off the rails. But, amazingly, Scarlett and Nora played peacefully on the beach for 30+ minutes while waiting and Hazel fell asleep in my arms. A miracle on both fronts!

During the tour each night Scarlett and Nora were (for the most part) captivated by the experience and when they weren’t the beach sand was a fun distraction. They got to help a turtle cover her eggs, which was awesome. Then, and you can’t plan for these moments, as we were walking back along the beach to the meeting spot at the end of night two, the guide noticed a turtle dragging a large piece of rope up the beach. He gave the red-light torch to one of our group (our family of 5 + a wonderful couple from upstate New York) to shine as he inspected the rope and saw it was attached to the turtle. He tried to remove it but it wasn’t working and the turtle was in pain. He flipped the turtle over (no easy task) and saw exactly how the rope was wrapped around the turtle’s flipper and body. He removed it and returned the turtle to its belly, where she made a 180 and headed straight back to the ocean. Apparently she will return shortly to the beach to lay her eggs once she is settled again, this time free of the entangled rope.

Our two respective guides live in Ostional and have been guides for years. They have their ‘real jobs’, but the turtles are their passion and every month they give tours when the turtles come to lay their eggs so they can share it, be a part of it and make a little extra spending money (it is only $10 per person, baby is free!)

The rescue moment left our group fully amazed and energized. It was a mixture of it being so sad to see the turtle in distress and so good to see the relief and freedom appear so quickly. We have discussed it a lot in the hours since the tours and today (the day after) as we drive up to Liberia, Costa Rica.