Camping on the beach and giant leather back turtles

Welcome to my second Outdoor Wednesday as usual our hostess is Susan at 'A Southern Daydreamer' after reading my post, head on over and see more!

Hey guys, I had a doozy of a weekend and right out of the blue! My husband's sister and her husband and kids visited on Saturday evening on their way to view giant leather back turtles that come to our shores during March to May to lay their eggs in the sand.

I always wanted to see it but never made the time, then hubby suggested that we tag along, they (the in-laws) had packed a tent, and told us there would be room in the tent for everyone, so I pushed all thought of my weekend responsibilities out of my housewife's head and decided what the hell!? Let's go!

My MIL (80yrs) decided she wanted to go as well, what a sense of adventure)

After hurriedly packing we were off, we picked a few coconuts from our tree, you know, to go with the rum,................ after the kids fall asleep.

We left home about 7pm and drove for a hour and a half, the turtles usually show up between the hours of midnight and 4am, yup it was gonna be a looooong night!

We got to the beach and worked on putting up the tent,

Kiddies played in the sand

After the tent was up,

The played in the tent!

I do not know where they got the energy, but they played until well after midnight! I went in to the tent and took a short nap, my BIL, took a walk along the beach to look for turtles, he hurried back and said that one is on the sand right now!! I was soooo exited, I began jumping up and down with the kiddies!

Just as we zipped up the tent, and headed off, a heavy shower came down! we hurried back into the tent, but it was just a passing cloud, thank goodness!!

With camera in hand and kids in tow we set off along the beach, ..............................

...............and there it was in all it' glory the magnificent, ancient, beautiful, Leather back Turtle!! Oh bloggers we were just in time! she had just come up to the beach and was digging a hole with her back fins, she dug and dug and dug for about 10 mins and then settled over the hole and the eggs began falling out of her, it was amazing to witness!!

Here she is, I was told that she is actually small compared to some that come up, there are leather backs as big as sedans!

These two photos were taken before she started digging, I really did not want to disturb her with my annoying flash from my camera so I just took these two.

One sad thing though, apparently where this turtle chose to lay her eggs, there were already eggs buried there, so , while digging she unearthed a few eggs and even some baby turtles, one of the eggs landed at my feet so I took it away from where this turtle was and snapped away! It is amazing how perfectly round the eggs are

After the excitement of viewing 3 turtles, especially exiting was to see them actually come ashore! we settled the kids into the tent to sleep, mind you, this is 330 am!

At this time we busted out the coconut water and we had one or two drinks, under the stars, kiddies asleep and we just 'limed'.

We too settled in about 430am, the next morning Keith had to go to work, we got up at 7am, and bundled a sleeping Gabby and granny into the truck, Isaiah asked to stay and how could we refuse, it was just so pretty there in the morning!! Here are some shots of the beach in the early morning

This group just slept on the sand!!

Gabby and granny all bundled up to go home