Without a doubt one of the most spectacular things you can see in nature is a turtle laying eggs on the beach. If you are ever lucky enough to witness such a phenomenon I assure you it is something you will never forget. While on a trip to South Africa I was staying in the town of St Lucia within the iSimangaliso Wetlands and it just happened to be December – prime time for turtle egg-laying. It was something I couldn’t miss out on but I did not realize how difficult the turtles would make it to spy on their little egg laying party.
Matt Karsten from Expert Vagabond searching for sea turtles on the beach with a high-powered spotlight
The plan was to leave town at around 7pm after dinner. We would have to drive from St Lucia town deep into the iSimangaliso Wetlands, then all the way up the Cape Vidal in the Eastern Shores and then onto the beach itself. It would take us well over an hour to get to the beach driving through the wetlands and then once we did get there, we wouldn’t know where the turtles would be exactly so our search radius was roughly 15 miles of open beach. We wouldn’t be back to town until roughly 2am and we had an early day tomorrow so as we headed out on this adventure I couldn’t help but be worried that this may be a whole lot of effort for nothing. But still – we had to try, right?
The track of a Leatherback Sea Turtle. Kinda looks like a giant one wheeled tractor.
The process of searching for the turtles was not at all what I expected. Basically our guide was driving as fast as he could down the beach right along the waterline with the waves crashing beneath the vehicle. We were constantly swerving to avoid huge rocks and boulders in the surf and all the while on the lookout for sea turtles. I’ll be honest, the task seemed impossible. Two of us were put on spotlight duty to search for “turtle tracks” (which I had never seen before) while we sped down the beach with waves crashing practically up against the truck.
The rarest turtle species on Earth and also the largest. At 1,300 pounds that’s a whole lot of turtle!
Then suddenly it happened. Before I even notice it my light falls on a turtle track and our guide spots it. We’ve hit the mother load – a massive leatherback turtle is on the beach preparing to lay her eggs! The turtle track was massive. Must have been three feet across at least. We approach the turtle quietly with absolutely no light waiting for our eyes to adjust to the moonlight. Suddenly we see it and are all immediately shocked by the size. It was an absolutely massive 1,300 pound leatherback sea turtle!
The face of a 1,300 pound Leatherback Sea Turtle after finishing laying 100 eggs
The turtle digs her nest using only its rear flippers and thus is totally blind to its progress. We huddled around her hind flippers and watch the progress. The flippers are huge and yet they can almost operate as nimbly as hands they are so muscular. For the next thirty minutes or so the turtle took turns with its flippers reaching into the hole, removing some sand, then carefully placing the sand on the side of the hole on the surface, then patting down the inside of the hole so it was smooth. Finally happy with the size of the hole, she paused. The moment hung in the air with a sort of wild tension as we all waited for what would come next. Suddenly, eggs started to appear! It seemed much easier for her to lay eggs then I would have thought. They were just kinda popping out, sometimes a few at a time each about the size of a small lemon and sort of soft on the outside so that they wouldn’t crack when falling into the hole.
Time to lay the eggs! This Leatherback Sea Turtle lays over 100 eggs in each nest and can create up to ten nests per season!
In total the turtle laid about 100 eggs and when she finished she expertly filled in the hole and smoothed it all out nice so that the eggs wouldn’t get crushed and also to disguise it from animals like the honeybadger that may try to burrow in and eat the eggs. That dude doesn’t give a fuck.
Leatherback Sea Turtle finishing up covering her nest with sand
The most remarkable thing about what this turtle does is that this is a sea turtle. It doesn’t spend any of its lifespan on land – none at all. It comes on land purely to lay eggs and then leaves. And yet it knows how to dig a hole and smooth it out, how to cover the eggs so they don’t get crushed and then protect the nest from animals it’s never seen and even create a decoy nest to throw them off. To make things more amazing, she will probably do this nine more times this season creating about ten different nests, or 1,000 eggs total. Her reproductive system works such that is can continue creating eggs from a single fertilization. She has the male turtle sperm inside her and she creates 100 or so eggs, lays them, then does the next batch. All in the name of continuing her species. Of the 1,000 eggs, only a handful will survive the treacherous hatching process, crawling out of the nest then all the way to the sea without being eaten and then survive to grow into a beautiful adult leatherback turtle. It’s a hard to be a turtle.
Me posing with Mamma Turtle – all 1,300 pounds of leatherback goodness.
If you ever find yourself with the opportunity to go search for turtles laying their eggs, most definitely take it. It may mean very little sleep, but the experience of seeing this happen before your eyes is something you will keep with you forever. Our turtle-tour was provided by EuroZulu Guided Tours & Safaris and if ever in South Africa, I would strongly suggest calling them up.
