Goodbye, Mike - That big, booming voice greeting us with “good morning” has been silenced. Mike Helwig, long-time Topsail Island sea turtle hospital and beach volunteer passed away on April 18th after a long battle with melanoma.

Topsail Island, NC - The Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue & Rehabilitation Center. We had a lot of visitors dropping by during the school break hoping that we were open - ‘twas not to be. We’re wrapping up our busiest winter ever, with up to 48 turtles under our care at one time. Our experiment with turtle communes (the quads, two sets of triplets and a set of twins) is a rousing success. When given the choice of “get along or get gone” these little greens decided that they would suck it up and play nice together.