While Amy was planning our trip she stumbled across a sea turtle conservation program. As part of that program, sea turtle nests are raided (in a good way) and the eggs are incubated in a safe environment. Within hours of hatching, the baby turtles are released on the beach, where they must make their way to the ocean. The females return lay eggs, But the males never return to the beach. Originally, the release was to occur on Tuesday morning, but due to late hatching, it was delayed until Wednesday. To accommodate the turtles, we simply switched our Seaworld day with the turtle/beach day. Amy and I were a little nervous that the turtle thing would be bogus. If it was, the kids would probably be a little upset as the release is at 6:00 in the morning. After arriving in Corpus Christi at 1:00 am, and finding a motel, we dragged the kids out of bed at 5:30 to make it to the Padre Island National Seashore (park) for the release. We reported at 6:20 am for the ranger talk, following which were led to the beach for the release. They released 96 turtles that day. The little suckers had to wake up and crawl about 50 feet to the ocean. During the trek, they were protected (from seagulls) by volunteers and cheered on by us spectators. There were probably about 75 spectators. It ended up being a really neat experience. After the release, we returned to the Motel and then back to bed. We were still exhausted. Checkout time wasn’t until noon.
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