FollowTheLeBarons: Bali Sea Turtle Society

On August 21 we released baby sea turtles into the ocean as part of the Bali Sea Turtle Society's sea turtle release program.

As most of you know my love for turtles started at a very young age when one of my sisters friends randomly started calling me "turtle". In turn, I started collecting a plethora of turtle figurines and adopted a sea turtle through the Sea Turtle Conservancy, to where I would donate most of my allowance and birthday money. Today, I still have turtle figurines strewn about the house so when I found out there was an organization in Bali that helps conserve endangered sea turtles, I just knew we had to visit! And so I dragged Kiel on a 2 hour car ride down to Kuta Beach, so we could wait in line for about an hour and half to receive a day old baby sea turtle to release into the ocean.

The Bali Sea Turtle Society relocates eggs that turtles lay on the the beach to a hatchery, in order to protect the eggs and increase survival rate. Once the eggs hatch, the babies are released back into the ocean, by people like us! So after everyone got a Tupperware container with a turtle in it, we made our way down to the beach (trying not to rattle the container too much), and lined up along the shore. Then on the count of three, everyone squat down to the sand and carefully tipped over their containers. The turtles knew exactly where to go as they raced towards the water, and I was like a proud and sappy mom sending my kid off to school.

It was quite a sight to see their flippers move through the sand and their little heads bob in the glistening water. It sounds weird, but I was actually quite emotional watching them go. Unfortunately only 1 in 1,000 make it to full adulthood, so the chance of ours surviving is very slim, but there's always the hope that their journey takes them to faraway and wonderful places.