Baby Sea Turtles

Hatchling sea turtles are cute!  I mean we were totally unprepared for how cute they are in person.  A baby loggerhead sea turtle is about the length of my thumb.  And they are fast too.  Once they hatch, they really hurry to the sea.  

I want to say thanks to the Loggerhead Marinelife Center and Florida Atlantic University, who helped us film baby loggerhead sea turtles as they hatched out of their nests on the beach and began their journey out to the open ocean.  We were lucky enough to accompany a batch of hatchlings as they were given a head start in the world and released several miles offshore into a mat of sargassum algae.  This yellowish/brown seaweed looks gross, just floating in clumps along the ocean's surface.  But it is full of life.  And this is where the baby loggerhead sea turtles will spend much of their youth living, growing, finding food and hiding from predators.  You can watch our efforts on a sample video clip from The Riddle in a Bottle. -- Robert Sams