Sea Turtles

Our tour of the beautiful Whitsunday Coast continues. Using Proserpine as our base, we've had a happy five days exploring Hydeaway Bay, Dingo Beach, Airlie Beach, Shute Harbour and Cedar Creek Falls. We acknowledge the Ngaro people who are the traditional owners of the Whitsundays.

It's hard to describe just how beautiful the beaches and surrounding coast are in this area. Every time I think we've stumbled across the most beautiful beach in the world, we turn a corner and there's another one. And, not to brag, I've been to beaches in Hawaii, Tahiti, the Greek Islands, the French Riviera, and Skegness to name a few. So I know a beautiful beach when I see one.

OK, Skegness isn't on the list of the world's most beautiful beaches, I snuck that one in to make sure you're paying attention.

There's a bit of photo overload below, but it's hard to choose between them. There are even some taken by Phil-E-Buster The Drone, whose batteries I finally remembered to charge.

For weeks now we've been seeing signs asking us to be mindful of nesting marine turtles. It's not nesting season yet, so we haven't seen any, but we did a bit of Googling to find out a few facts about these lovely animals.

Six of the seven species of marine turtles in the world can be found in the Great Barrier Reef:

• Green turtle

• Loggerhead turtle

• Hawksbill turtle

• Flatback turtle

• Olive ridley turtle

• Leatherback turtle

Marine turtles grow slowly and take decades to reach sexual maturity. Some immature turtles might drift on ocean currents for years, while others might live in one place for years before maturing and travelling up to 3000km from their feeding ground to a nesting beach here in the Whitsundays.

Turtles mate with a number of different partners and the females store sperm in their bodies to fertilise from three to seven clutches of eggs laid throughout the nesting season. Each clutch has about 120 eggs which take Between seven and 12 weeks to hatch.

Once they've hatched, usually at night, the little turtles look to the brightest direction to find the sea and then use the topography of the horizon to find their way to the water. Once they're there, they use To find the sea, hatchlings orient towards the brightest direction and use the topography of the surrounding horizon line. Once they're in the sea, they use wave direction, current, and magnetic fields to find their way to deeper water.

Crossing the beach and swimming away is believed to program the hatchlings with the information they need to find their way back when they are ready to breed, 20 to 30 years later.

Breeding and nesting season is from October to March and those lucky enough to be here at the right time can watch the female turtles digging their nests in the sand and a bit later, see the hatchlings emerge from the sand and make their way to the sea.

Fortunately for the turtles, the marauding Labs will be long gone by the time that happens.