This blogger will take a vacation for the remainder of September. However, as of today, the beaches in our area suffered severe wash-outs and wash-overs during the passing of the recent hurricane, Irene. Although the storm stayed hundreds of miles out to sea, her parallel course along the Florida east coast created heavy winds and waves, effectively washing out (or drowning) most of the sea turtle nests remaining on our stretch of beach. This writer will check the beaches again in October upon his return, but the prospects are dim - contrary to what the newspapers quoted several experts, including some from EAI, as saying about the damage further south along the county line. I don't hold out much hope for the nests that we were tracking to actually hatch, but it will be interesting to see how many may have survived. Good luck to us all!
The attached videos are of some of the last "hatchling stragglers" that this observer saw in August, just before the big "wash-out" discussed in the above paragraph. Mother Nature destroyed many of the nests that were ready for hatching in August but, fortunately, approximately 16 nests hatched along our stretch of beach in the months prior to the damaging storm waves, so at least a small portion of the nests completed their cycle.
Thanks for reading this blog for the first 3/4 of the "season". Best wishes to you all for a good September. See you in October!
