Waities has first crawl?

A friend of mine was out on Waities this morning and shared these photo's of a crawl that she saw but it's not a turtle crawl it's a Gator crawl. So we can add to the list of creatures that we can see on our daily walks to include gators.

MYSTERY SOLVED!

We went from being inquisitive, to cautious, to perplexed to laughing all in a short span of time.

OHHH I just love walking on Waties!! You never know what the ocean is going to give up, reveal.

How can something be so necessary for our existence, so therapeutic and yet be so taken for granted.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Gail Oakes and I walked on Waties Island last Saturday and came across this not too far from the water. At first glance it looked like blood. Tune in tomorrow to solve the mystery.

Valerie

May 9 Stranding on Waties

This morning - and a beautiful morning it was - brought us the first stranding of the season on Waties: a small Kemps ridley sea turtle.

There have been a number of these small turtles which have washed up on Grand Strand beaches recently. One on Briarcliff on May 3, one on NMB on May 5 and another one on NMB on May 7. Two new volunteers, Will and Jenny Lynn, were on hand to help this morning - thank you! Also, a big thank you to Valerie for these great photos.

Barb and Steve

Another Stranding

From the smallest to the largest in the sea turtle world:


NMB had a small Kemps Ridley strand this morning around 6100 N. Ocean Boulevard.

Rob and several members of the NMB Sea Turtle Patrol got to experience first hand what it's all about. Scanning for embedded pit tags, taking photos, filling out paperwork, making phone calls, and then doing all the internet submissions too! Busy day...

The largest of the species, a leatherback, stranded in Myrtle Beach two days ago. These photos were taken by Dave Fuss. Leatherbacks are not commonly seen here (unlike loggerheads who are here in large numbers). SC DNR came up from Charleston with a team who did a necropsy on the beach to try to determine what might have killed this young turtle. A full grown adult leatherback would be much larger than this specimen.

Busy Day on the Grand Strand

Yesterday, there were a couple of strandings (sea turtles washed up on the beach) - a juvenile leatherback came ashore at the Ocean Lakes Campground in Myrtle Beach and a small loggerhead washed ashore around 6200 Ocean Boulevard in Cherry Grove. The SCUTE Facebook page has photos of the leatherback and the NMB Sea Turtle Patrol blog has photos of the loggerhead -

http://www.facebook.com/pages/SCUTE/36320641283

http://nmbturtle.blogspot.com/

Here Animal Control Officer Charlotte Porter is getting the loggerhead turtle ready to transport to the SC DNR officials who were on the scene of the leatherback stranding.

Barb and Steve

2010 TURTLE SEASON HAS OFFICIALLY STARTED

Today was a warm and humid morning on Waties Island. We were greeted with another of the islands beautiful sunrises

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Looks like that crab has enough dinner for the week!!

Last Saturday the Coast Guard worked hard on removing the very large plastic drum that has been on Waties for a long time. This morning, almost at the same spot near marker 7 we found the remnants of this fiberglass hull. As I'm told, we never know what we will find.