Although the season seemed to be coming to an end, we were pleasantly surprised to find four leatherbacks while surveying last night. It was an absolutely gorgeous night. The water was eerily flat and perfectly clear. You could see turtles swimming everywhere just offshore. At one point, we even saw a small shark swimming in the wave line. The moon was full and the tide was low so we had a perfect drive. Our first turtle was Fiona. We tagged Fiona in the Hobe Sound National Wildlife Refuge in 2014 and that was her 6th encounter this year. Shortly after Caitlin found Fiona, Chris and I came across Bari. Bari was actually tagged by our friends at the University of Central Florida in the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge in 2010. That’s the 2nd time we’ve seen her this year. We had two additional turtles spotted on Hutchinson Island. Verity is one of our new girls from this year tagged way back in March. We haven’t seen her since then so she must have been nesting elsewhere for the majority of the season. We also encountered a turtle tagged way back in 2005. Overall it was a perfect night!
