I THINK HE/SHE MADE IT!

 I think that he/she made it!  Yes, it's quite amazing, but this is not the first time that this blogger has followed some misguided hatchling tracks for great distances along the beach. From time to time, because of lights that distract the hatchlings, or just general disorientation once the hatchlings push their way out of the nest, a few hatchlings seem to go amazing distances - when you consider how small and slow they are, parallel to the shore line.  This morning, I found another such track and I followed it for a very long distance, relatively speaking.  Most of his/her nest-mates had headed for the ocean once they got out of the nest (see photo with very light tracks on the wet beach leading to the ocean), but this misguided one went a total of 485 yards, by my calculations.  I'm not sure of the accuracy of that statistic, but I used my hand-held GPS and found that he had traveled a total of 10.4 "seconds".  As you know, when using latitude and longitude, a common way to list the location of an object on the earth's surface is in "degrees", "minutes" and "seconds" of latitude and longitude. The "minutes" and "seconds" don't really have anything to do with time in this instance, but they are, along with "degrees", a measure of distance between two points on the map.  A few days earlier, I had paced out one "second" of latitude on the beach.  My estimate was that one "second of latitude" equaled 140 feet, so that's how I arrived at the figure of 485 yards.  That was calculated as follows:

Hatchling Tracks to the Ocean

N 27 28 03.8 minus N 27 27 53.4 = 10.4 seconds, so 10.4 seconds of latitude X 140 feet per "second" of latitude = 1456 feet.  1456 feet divided by 3 = 485 yards

I'd be happy to have anyone do their own calculations and correct any major errors that I may have made in my calculations, but until I receive that response, I'll stick to my answer and remain in awe of the little tike that traveled that far.  By the way, I followed the tracks until he made a turn for the ocean and I lost his tracks in the wet sand.  That leads me to believe that he/she actually made it to the water and will start a long 20 year journey around the Atlantic Ocean basin and, perhaps one day, return to our area to lay eggs in another nest on our beach!

By the way, speaking of sea turtle journeys, has anyone else seen the DVD movie of such a journey?  I believe that the movie is called "Turtles: The Amazing Journey", and it truly is an amazing journey.  If you haven't seen it yet, treat yourself to one of nature's most interesting animal journeys. I'm sure that you'll enjoy it.  It's done in a very "tasteful" way, so that it's appropriate for children, as well.