In November of 2024, Wakatobi guest Bruce Wilford captured a special moment taking place on the sands of the resort’s Turtle Beach. It started with a ripple in the sand. A tiny head emerged, the sand churned, and a coin-sized hatchling crawled into the sunlight. Within short order, it was followed by siblings who somehow knew it was time for a coordinated and collective crawl to the sea.

Guided by countless generations of instinct, these baby green turtles will leave the shore and swim to the safety of deep water to spend their first years in the pelagic zone foraging for jellyfish and other soft-bodied invertebrates.

Two to three years later, and now the size of a small dinner plate, some of the brood will return to the shores of Wakatobi. This homecoming marks their transition to a mostly vegetarian diet, and they find ample fodder in the surrounding seagrass meadows. From this point on the turtles will continue to put on about ten pounds a year and live for six or seven decades.

Sometime in their twenties, the females will reach sexual maturity and develop maternal instincts. Mothers-to-be scattered across the waters of central Indonesia will return to their Wakatobi birthplace. On the same sands where their lives began, they complete the life cycle that Bruce was fortunate to capture. We would like to thank him for sharing this special moment.

Turtle Beach at the south end of the resort. Guests recently enjoyed a front-row seat to nature’s spectacle: green turtle hatchlings in front of Bungalow 32. Photo by Didi Lotze

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