Written by  Carla Zuill
17 Aug 2015

Jasun Paynter

What started out as an ordinary summer Sunday morning has turned into the anticipation of an exciting event for one nine-year-old St. George’s boy. Jaysun Paynter, who lives across the street from the Alexandra Batteray beach, tells Today in Bermuda that yesterday started out like every other weekend at home with his parents and siblings.

Until there was a knock on his door.

“It was a man at my house and he asked for a bucket to put turtles in because baby turtles had hatched on the beach. I went and called my daddy and my momma told me to take the iPad outside to take pictures because I had never seen something like this before.”

Jaysun says by the time he got outside there were a number of people standing around watching with interest. The young boy said when he got closer, he saw a number of the baby turtles in the container with seawater his father had provided and several unhatched eggs in the sand.

The East End Primary student adding that he knew from attending camp at the Bermuda Aquarium, Museum  and Zoo that it was normal for the mother turtle not to be present as it lays its eggs at night and then leaves the area.

“I was excited because I’d never seen anything like this before. It was really interesting because it was something I’d learned about but never thought that I would see.”

When asked what happened to the hatched turtles, Jaysun says: “ The man took the turtles to the Aquarium and then someone came down here to look at the area.”

And as it turns out, there was a bigger surprise than what Jaysun expected as the beach has now been closed by the Department of Parks until at least this coming Wednesday.

According to a Government spokesperson, staff from BAMZ are currently stationed at the beach to monitor the hatchlings and, along with Parks rangers, will advise anyone who visits the site of the closure.

Maintenance staff from the Department of Parks have been instructed not to rake the beach until receiving clearance from the Department of Conservation Services.

Thus far, 15 hatchlings have been found, 12 of which have been released to sea.