Seaturtles and urchins

This week I took a walk along one of our beaches on the eastern coast of our island. It was early in the morning and when I strolled along the waterline, I suddenly noticed the above trails: seaturtles!!!

The waters east of St. Maarten's are Atlantic and big part of it is nature park, so I knew you might see some natural beauty there, but somehow could not really believe it. And there it was, all of a sudden, the ultimate evidence that this lovely creature is indeed swimming here and what's more: is coming ashore to lay it's eggs on this beach. I felt so fortunate to witness this, can you imagine?

Last year we travelled to Suriname and witnessed a seaturtle laying eggs on the shore of Galibi, where the Marowijne River meets the Atlantic Ocean. We joined an excursion at night, first by boat and then about a half hour walk along the very dark beach of this Marowijne shore, all this accompanied by our Carib Indian guide, as the area there is their territory. There is a lot of info to be found about seaturtles here and some Galibi seaturtle pictures on this site.

and when doing some research on turtles, I came upon the sea urchins, favorite food of the turtles. And I wanted to finish this whole series of urchin posts and the spotting of the trails with an image of both of them.

Made in PS, image of the tracks as a basic layer (inverted) on which the urchin picture I posted earlier this week ws layered. Again played with the sliders and blending options and colourfilters and this is the result.

I like the mysterious purple/burgundy colour with yet that hint of aqua, and you??

Comments are very much appreciated!