Hi everyone!

This year I have been practicing very hard to learn how to swim - the confidence and fearlessness are all there, just my ability to breathe continuously while in water is still… shockingly inconsistent (& has led to many near heart-attacks for my parents!)

I have been promised - once I know how to swim - that I can start snorkelling & diving to discover the under-water sea life, which sounds amazing (and only a little scary)! Unfortunately, I still need a few years to get there, and I am worried there are less and less animals. Hence, this year we’ve decided to support some of the smallest ones: baby sea turtles.

While a sea turtle lays hundreds of eggs per nesting season, it is up to each baby turtle to hatch, make it off the beach & into the water, and survive all sorts of other natural predators. About one in 1,000 hatchlings make it to adulthood - good thing turtles live 50-100+ years! [There is a traumatising documentary on this where even Attenborough’s calming voice is of little comfort to viewers young and old…].

The Turtle Foundation has been working since 2000 to ensure less human intervention (from poaching, to habitat destruction, to pollution) harms baby turtles along their journey. For more information and loads and loads of data (after all, one does not make the “Top Sea Turtle Charities” list without an USP…) please visit: https://www.turtle-foundation.org

They’ve also taught me that baby sea turtles spent their initial years (aka “the lost years”) drifting passively with the ocean current until they are big enough to venture out by themselves - hence it’s very difficult to ever spot baby turtles. AND: the Pixar scene was (nearly*) right!

Thank you for supporting my fundraiser this year & I hope to see you all at my birthday party on Saturday! Until then: “rock on, dude!”

Lexie (a-soon-to-be 4 year old)

Note: *apparently turtles do NOT get high from jellyfish poison. Bummer.