There’s one thing you can always count on if you’re a volunteer at the turtle hospital: expect the unexpected. We’ve had plenty of surprises over the years, but when a functioning, juvenile Loggerhead with about half of her carapace smashed to smithereens arrived we couldn’t do anything but stand there with our mouths open.

The Family Giving Challenge - put your game faces on and come up with some creative ways to get together your $1,000 donation for our building fund. We have an astounding number of kids who request donations for our patients in lieu of a birthday present. And these kids give repeatedly, year after year. Toddlers to teens show up at our summer open house lugging heavy bags of coins for our turtles; money they earned from lemonade stands, bake sales, special sporting events and chores; often hundreds of dollars in coins.

We’re making your holiday and special occasion gift shopping simple with our revised and updated “Adopt A Rescued Sea Turtle” program. First, visit our website (www.seaturtlehospital.org) to review the list of patients up for adoption. With the recent admit of four new turtles we’re pretty much out of floor space, and it’s not even cold-stun season quite yet. When that happens we’re going to be in a real jam - actually we’re already in a literal jam. We know that there will be more sick and injured turtles needing our help and we’ll have to somehow work miracles to get them into our tiny building. That new hospital can’t come fast enough! We still need over $300,000 for phase one, so when you’re reviewing your charitable giving plans for this year please add us to your list. Flipper hugs!

The less-than-perfect weather during the festival certainly didn’t stop the crowd of over a thousand people from streaming through our doors for a last peek at our turtles. While our volunteers manned the tanks in our year-round uniforms of T-shirts and shorts our visitors came through bundled in coats and hats trying to ward off the wind and cold. Many of them were first-timers who just happened to be in the area and were lucky enough to catch us before we closed (for good) for 2009.

Our juiciest, literally, fundraiser is almost here - our Annual Sea Turtle Hospital Lobster Dinner and Auction. This always sold-out event will be held Saturday, October 24th at the Assembly Building in Topsail Beach. Start the evening by catching up with old friends during our complimentary wine and cheese hour, beginning at 6 PM.

Sennet our male Loggerhead was released a few weeks ago wearing a satellite tag. You can track him uisng NOAA and ARGOS. He’s headed for the Cape Fear Commune.

On Wednesday, September 16th we released nine totally rehabilitated and very excited sea turtles back to Mother Ocean. It was a day for the “carryin’ of the Greens” as the last (minus one) of the little cold-stuns that came in almost a year ago was finally set free. Joining them were two of our larger Loggerheads, “NOAA” and “Sennet,” and a little Kemp’s named “Squirt.”

Harvey Bradshaw of Sneads Ferry died on August 19th, and we’re betting that one of the first people he reconnected with in heaven was his old friend, Karen Beasley. He was a great friend to Karen Beasley, founder of the Topsail Turtle Project and namesake of our turtle hospital.

Sea Turtle Hospital Topsail Island, NC - This has been one crazy summer at the hospital. The ailing turtles never quit coming. The volunteers sweated through long mornings of tending to sick turtles and even longer afternoons of tending to our adoring public. Now we’ve shut our doors to take a final look at who’s healthy enough to go home, and who’s going to be spending the winter with us.

Here’s the scoop on our Sea Turtle Hospital nesting FAQ’s. Where are the nests? How long does it take? Can you tell me where and when a nest will hatch? Who watches the nests? Can I watch a nest hatch? Also coming up… Lobster Dinner and Yard Sale!