(From tcpalm.com) Indialantic, Florida- Exhausted and dehydrated, helplessly tumbling amid the roiling surf, tiny sea turtles are washing ashore across the central Space Coast. Measuring only a few inches long, these hard-shelled critters typically spend their formative years in floating seaweed “nurseries,” roughly 25 miles offshore, near the Gulf Stream. But robust east winds Sunday and Monday pushed miles-long mounds of the aquatic plants onto the beach — leaving the saltwater reptiles stranded high and dry.
By Monday afternoon, volunteers and beachcombers spotted 13 marooned loggerheads from this summer’s hatch. These sluggish juvenile “wash-backs” are recuperating inside shaded, moistened plastic bins at the Sea Turtle Preservation Society’s Indialantic office.