When do sea turtles lay eggs Ningaloo Reef ?

Have you been thinking about taking a trip to Ningaloo Reef to see the Sea turtles coming up on to the beach & laying their eggs in season ?

We enjoyed seeing a sea turtle close up recently when a giant turtle almost walked over me as we sat on the beach at Ningaloo reef in February this year ! I We had made the special trip up to Ningaloo reef mainly to watch turtles hatching at night!

Neville & I were sitting close to each other and the others on the turtle tour when this turtle decided she wasn't going to lay her eggs yet and was heading back down to the beach. I had to move to create a gap so it was able to get through and back out to sea !

This only happens here between December and February each year so we made a special trip !Going on sea turtle tours to a moonlit beach sounded like something really different !

That was an amazing experience & alltogether I think we saw about 8-10 turtles coming out of the water but none actually laying the eggs.

If you would like to view nesting marine turtles DEC strongly recommends that you visit the Jurabi Turtle Centre and encourages you to participate in a guided experience.

This is what we chose to do as they teach you a few things along the way.

This so as to prevent too many turtles being disrupted along the coast by tourists

Guided turtle interaction tours will be operating from December 2010 to February 2011. Tours can be booked through the Exmouth Visitor Centre and bookings are essential.

You can register to be a volunteer with the turtles if that is of interest to you .

You can also register for being a volunteer at Monkey Mia with the dolphins being fed every day which I was able to do while there .

We also enjoyed seeing the penguin parade on Philip Island last year which we really enjoyed as well.!

Even though they spend much of their lives drifting and feeding in the open ocean, the beach is an important nesting habitat for turtles.

Sea Turtles live for years in one place before they are ready to make the long breeding migration of up to 3,000 kilometres from their feeding grounds to nesting beaches. Courtship and mating take place in shallow waters near the nesting beach. Females often mate with more than one male. After mating, the males return to the feeding grounds. They have a large shell called a carapace, four strong, paddle-like flippers and like all reptiles, lungs for breathing air. The characteristic beak-like mouth is used to shear or crush food.

Other Places to see Turtles close up are

Mon Repos Beachbout 15km east of Bundaberg in Queensland Australia. This place contains one of the largest concentrations of nesting marine turtles in the region. Visiting species include the loggerhead, green, and the flatback.

Cousin Island Seychelles,

Porto Roma, Zakynthos, Greece

By the Similan Islands (Donald Duck Bay) in Thailand,

Turtle Beach in Honulani in the northern shores of Oahu, Hawaiian green turtles will crawl right up on to the sands to get their tan on before ducking back into the warm waters

.There are some wonderful sea turtles in Barbados as well.They  have some great big Hawsbill and Green Turtles. They swim along very freely so you should get to see them if you visit the area.

Something else that comes through strongly in the reports is that if you want to go on sea turtle tours you need to exercise a lot of patience. Some people have waited until 2am in the morning before the first turtle sightings occurred so prepare yourself for a long wait but it is definitely worth it in the end

Take a drink & snack for while you are waiting.When you do see a turtle make sure you keep very still for the whole time the turtle is up on the shore .

If you are standing then very slowly lower yourself to the ground & keep very quiet so you don't scare the turtles away .

With the baby turtles it is very important that if you come across them breaking out of their shell & making their way to the sea that you do not pick them up & take them to the water .

The reason is because years later they make their way back to the same beach & need that walk to the sea to be able to do that easily.

The vast majority of hatchlings will, of course, die young, falling prey to seabirds, crabs and hungry fish. Those that do make it will remain solitary until they too feel the urge to mate.

Those that negotiate the difficult early years and make it to adulthood encounter few predators, mostly large sharks in particular tiger sharks.