WE NOW know how archaeologist and Egyptologist Howard Carter must have felt as he rummaged around in the mystical Valley of the Kings.

Agreed, our quest may not have been in such a romantic and historic place but our objectives were somewhat similar. While Carter combed vast areas of sandy terrain hunting the tomb of boy pharaoh Tutankhamen, we were targeting kilometres of sand for entombed baby turtles!

And, just like Carter all those years ago, our tireless efforts were finally rewarded after what seemed like an eternity searching for those elusive and endangered marine creatures.

We felt privileged and were spellbound as scores of baby turtles, no more than a few centimetres long, slowly dug their way out of their sandy egg chamber and scurried off to an unknown and uncertain future in the vast waters of the Pacific Ocean.

It was Mother Nature at her best when the sand delivered its precious clutch of 100 or more baby loggerheads on the beach at Moore Park Beach, about 21km north of Bundaberg in Queensland., Australia.

My wife Patricia and I had spent five frustrating evenings combing every metre of the foreshore along a four-kilometre stretch of beach searching for evidence of hatchlings beginning their fascinating and treacherous journey into life.

We were about to abandon our search on the moonlit beach when a telephone call from local turtle coordinator Judi Giarola had us dashing nearly a kilometre to where a nest was about to deliver its precious treasure trove of babies.

A miracle of Moore Park Beach was about to unfold.

We sat spellbound for more than three hours as telltale signs – grains of sand moving, subsidence and strange shapes appearing on the surface – indicated the hatchlings had begun digging their way through the sand to the surface.

Then suddenly the metre-wide nest erupted like a volcano, spewing scores of hatchings into the night air. Amazingly and almost en-masse, these tiny creatures slowly turned towards the ocean and headed towards the surf.

And as if on cue a crab suddenly appeared … it was the hatchlings’ first brush with danger, which sees only one in a thousand reach maturity. This time they were lucky. We were on hand to quickly ward off the impending crab attack!

Extraneous lights can easily disorientate the hatchlings and this leads to many deaths. But anticipating this, my wife grabbed her torch and led the fortunate tribe to the water’s edge. She was, so to speak, the Pied Piper of Moore Park Beach!

Judi explained how she had stumbled across the nest 10 days previously when heavy rains exposed the eggs. Expertly she relocated them, ensuring they were positioned the correct way up, and re-covered them with sand.

These fortunate hatchlings had survived the land dangers, though many more hazards faced them in the ocean. They are tasty morsels for sharks and other fish and sea dwellers.

But Judi told us that sadly many more fall prey to mankind. Green turtles are much sought after in tropical countries for their eggs and meat. Baby green and loggerhead turtles often fall victims to trawlers and their nets, though things have improved with the introduction of compulsory ‘turtle friendly’ nets which now offer an escape route for them, she said.

Though deemed a vulnerable species, I’m happy to report that research indicates a slight turnaround in this marine creature’s misfortunes.

A few years ago their numbers had plummeted to an all-time low but scientists monitoring turtle numbers say more and more of these long-lived ocean dwellers are returning to our shores.

Marine turtles grow very slowly and reach sexual maturity after 30 to 50 years. Astonishingly, nesting females will return to lay their eggs in the same area where they were born..

Scientists believe hatchlings are imprinted with the earth’s magnetic field and smell of the waters near the nesting beach.

Courtship and mating – females gather sperm from several males – occur in shallow waters near the breeding beaches. Females can lay up to six clutches of eggs several weeks apart, a clutch comprising up to about 160 soft white eggs the size of a table tennis ball.

But the Southern Hemisphere's most important loggerhead turtle rookery ‒ Mon Repos, near Bundaberg in Queensland, Australia ‒ even recorded one clutch of 206 eggs..

Incubation, size and sex are thought to be governed by the temperature and colour of the sand in which the eggs are laid. Researchers have found that warm, dark sand produces mostly females while eggs in cool, white sand yield male hatchlings.

Nesting at Moore Park Beach and nearby beaches is from late October to early March. Hatchlings appear approximately 52 to 64 days after eggs are laid.

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