A new relationship with animals, nature and each other.

World’s Most Mysterious Migration

Sea turtles’ half-decade, 9,000-mile journey to lay their eggs.

Their journey began five years ago as newly hatched babies on the beaches of North Carolina. Thousands of them raced for the safety of the Atlantic Ocean. Then they began a 9,000-mile migration around the Atlantic, to Europe and back, without ever coming ashore.

Each year, in June, the few of them who make it back to their birthplace begin to clamber ashore along the beaches of North Carolina. They lay their eggs — hundreds of them — and return to the ocean, setting out, once again, on the long migration.

The new generation of babies will be born two months later.

It’s an amazing story, told here in the Charlotte Observer.