Babies on board at Turtle Beach

It's a new year - and with it, comes some new little faces at Wakatobi Dive Resort!

In November 2024, Wakatobi guest Bruce Wilford spotted some movement in the sand at Turtle Beach, at the southern end of the resort. Out popped a head, and suddenly a coin-sized hatchling made its way to the surface, followed by a bunch of its siblings. 

Wakatobi has been helping give baby green turtles a head start for over a decade, and over the years, more of these delightful reptiles have been swimming in the surrounding reefs, with females making their way onto the beach at night to lay their eggs.

Once they've taken their chaotic but mesmerising journey to the sea, these baby turtles will spend their first years in the pelagic zone, foraging for jellyfish and other soft-bodied invertebrates. In two to three years' time, some of the brood, now the size of dinner plates, will return to Wakatobi. From then they will transition to a mostly vegetarian diet, finding their food in the resort's seagrass meadows. 

In years to come, some of the females will return to their birthplace when they reach sexual maturity, laying eggs in the same beach they began their own lives.