Our special summer visitors, the sea turtles, have been very busy in the last few days and the tally of nests at Royal Resorts already stands at 227, with 26,951 eggs (statistics July 2, 2013).
There are 129 nests in The Royal Caribbean corral, all tagged as green turtle nests with the exception of two loggerhead and a lone hawksbill nest. At The Royal Sands, there are 98 nests, all green turtles with the exception of a hawksbill nest which was registered on July 1. One nest contains 171 eggs, way above the average.
Last Saturday, June 29 was particularly active with 18 turtles coming ashore to lay their eggs, nine at The Royal Sands and nine in front of the trio of resorts.
We are sure that you will be as delighted as we are with this news and we hope that our turtle summer will be as remarkable as last year’s season.
Spare a thought for our dedicated team of security guards who patrol the beach and guard the nests round the clock, even during torrential rain and summer storms. They watch over the female turtle as she digs a hole in the sand and begins to lay her eggs. The eggs are then collected and the fragile and precious burden is carried to the corral. The guards then they dig a nest that emulates the form of a natural nest and rebury the eggs. They record the date, time, species of turtle and number of eggs on a post and patiently wait 45 to 60 days for the eggs to hatch and the babies to struggle free, ready to begin their mad scramble down the beach and into the waves.
Stay posted for more updates and turtle articles during the summer, including news from turtle watchers in the Riviera Maya. And if you have a turtle story, why not share it with us? We would love to hear from you.
