ISLAND
VISITORS
S H E WA S W E A R Y F R O M H E R J O U R N E Y
OF OVER A THOUSAND MILES , BUT
K N E W W I T H T H E C E R TA I N T Y O F A L L
extraordinary season for nesting and hatching, which
has kept our sea turtle volunteers busy with dawn
walks looking for nests and then nest-sitting when time
for the tiny sea turtles to “boil” from their nest.
I can stand on a windswept beach anywhere on this
beautiful planet and feel at peace with the breeze
blowing through my hair, the song of the gulls, the
T H I N G S E T E R N A L T H AT S H E WA S C L O S E swash of waves cascading on the shore. But like the
T O T H E B E A C H T H AT WA S U N I Q U E LY loggerhead sea turtles who first were hatchlings on
H O M E TO H ER .
Emerald Isle, it is only when I am ankle deep in the wet
sands of my island home, my Emerald Isle, do I feel that
ineffable whisper from my soul that says, “Here, here, on
Lifting her powerful head above the breakers she cast
her liquid, luminous eyes to the east and then to the
west. Kicking with her powerful flippers a few deft
times and the surging wave brought
her to shore. No longer in her oceanic
element, all 250 pounds of mother
loggerhead sea turtle steadfastly
crawled past the high tide line until
she reached the soft, dry sand at
the toe of the dune. Yes, this is good,
this is the place of her memory, this
is where she will lay her nest for the
very first time. Carefully, instinctively
preparing the nest with her back
flippers, she lays over 150 eggs, gently
and methodically covers them, then
ponderously makes the slow crawl back
to the sea. In two months, hatchlings
the size of a fifty cent piece will
emerge and the tiny female sea turtles
this beach is where you are meant to be.”
We’ve borne a lot over the past year as we continue
to rebuild after hurricane Florence came ashore
September 2018. You have taught us you
love our island as much as we do, for even
when we said your beach home won’t be
ready in time, you came anyway, just for a
later week or chose a different cottage. We
apologized that the island still had some
unsightly roof repairs and many of our
favorite trees were gone and you promised
that none of that mattered as long as
the beach and the ocean were there as
you remembered. You sent encouraging
emails and notes that said we were in
your prayers and we felt every single one.
You gave us hope. You gave us the gift
of courage. You taught us resilience in the
midst of this most trying of years.
will knowingly claim this as their beach But most of all, you came back. With the
to return three decades later. faith of a loggerhead sea turtle, you know
This summer from Florida to North Carolina sea turtles
were nesting in record breaking numbers: 2,200
loggerhead nests along the NC coast by mid-August,
breaking the 2016 record of 1,622 nests. Conservation
efforts put in place 30 years ago are now seeing the
effects of early nests that were saved as those females
reach their maturity. On Emerald Isle, it has been an
that this is your beach, too. Welcome back to your
island home, freshly painted, newly refurbished, with
your favorite beach as your destiny.