Videos Produced by Baja and Beyond Tours

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BAJA AND BEYOND TOURS VIDEO GALLERY

BAJA CAVE PAINTINGS

SEA TURTLE VIDEOS

This mother Olive Ridley sea turtle came ashore just 20 feet from us. We kept clear, waiting for about 30 minutes for her to find a good nesting place. One she started to lay her eggs, and she entered her "trance," we began to video her activities. For the purposes of information, Paublo, our marine biologist, pulled the sand away from her so we could video the eggs being laid. This is not what we normally do, but decided by us shooting this video, you would have the opportunity to see it. After layer her eggs, she covered her eggs, trying to make it is difficult as possible for her eggs to be found by predators. Then she turned to make her way toward the Pacific. We did video her going back to sea, being careful that our headlamp was always in front of her and toward the ocean so she would not get confused. It was an incredible experience.

Once the mother makes her way back home, we try to find the nest. It is not as easy as you would think. Here our expert leader, Elizabeth Gonzalez, makes it look easy. She uses a stick to find the nest, making sure no eggs are hurt in the process. Once the nest is located, we collect the eggs, place them on the sand, making sure we get a correct count before we place them in a bag for transport to the protected area. A complete record is kept of where the eggs are found, the date and time they are found, and the number of eggs found, including any that are broken.

Here we dig new nests inside the protected area and place the sea turtle eggs we just dug out of the mother's nest. Once we have placed the eggs in the new nest, a stick is placed on the nest with the information on the date, time, location, number of eggs and the anticipated hatching date written on the stick.

About 45 days after the eggs are placed in the new nest, the hatchlings begin to crawl out of the nest. Most of the hatchlings had already crawled out, but this little guy was just starting to hatch when we were cleaning out the nest. It took him about 20 minutes to break out. Then once he got his strength up, we released him to the Pacific. This is very some incredible and very unusual video.

About 80% of the eggs placed in the protected area hatch and are released.