Talk about right place, right time! The other night we went for a walk on the Naples beach and came upon a few people gathered around one of the sea turtle nests.

One of the women told us that two baby turtles had already hatched and had made their way down to the water; and yes, we could see their little flipper trails! So we sat down and waited for the rest of the babies and let me tell you … it was incredible!

It probably took about 15 minutes as we watched a slight indentation in the sand move little by little, and then suddenly a couple of tiny heads popped up followed by four babies erupting from the sand.

Everyone was oohing and ahhing at the little ones making their way out of the nest and down to the water when suddenly the entire nest exploded with baby sea turtles! The Sea Turtle Conservancy reports that mama sea turtles can lay about 110 eggs per nest and I can tell you that we easily saw 80 to 100 babies that night.

It was unreal. That nest exploded and those little ones were on a mission to get to the Gulf of Mexico and by golly they did, and so fast, too! I was almost afraid to blink for fear of missing a moment.

Thirteen years of living in Naples and that was a first for us. It was something we will never forget.