Luke lives in Neptune Beach and loves to walk down to see the water everyday after school. He likes to wiggle his toes in the sand and listen to the crashing of the waves on the shore. These sights never get old for him and is something that he looks forward to everyday.

Signs like these are posted up and down the beaches and they give Luke something new to be excited about. When a sea turtle journeys onto the beach to lay their eggs, conservationists mark off zones to help protect those nests. Nesting season spans from May 1st all the way to October 31st. In August, you can expect to see the beach lined with these nesting zones.

Conservationist: A person who protects the environment and the wildlife that lives there.

While out on one of Luke's afternoon walks, he saw a group of people building one of the nesting protection areas. He decided to walk over to them to see what they were doing. Mr. Brown approached Luke and told him that they were part of the Beaches Sea Turtle Patrol and that they had just found a new Green Sea Turtle. Luke knew Green Sea Turtles were not very common on this beach so he decided to stay and watch them for a while.

The next few weeks showed a lot of changes...

The Coronavirus pandemic swept across the entire world and nearly everything shut down. Luke could no longer go to school, so instead he did all of his school work at home sitting at his dining room table. The mayor closed the beaches and Luke couldn't go on his daily walks. It seemed that the whole world paused and Luke was stuck inside.

Luke would look out his bedroom window to nobody on the beach. Typically, there are hundreds of people walking, swimming, surfing, sitting, and running. Now, there was nobody. The waves still crashed and the fish still swam, but nobody was there to see it.

During the pandemic, all beaches were closed. Beaches Sea Turtle Patrol wasn't even allowed on the beach to track nests. Ft George state park, which is typically lined with boats, was abandoned. Everybody was continuing their lives from the inside of their homes.

People could watch ocean life through a live webcam off of the South Florida coastline. For those stuck at home and craving a little bit of the salt air, this was as close as they would come to interacting with the ocean life. It's almost as if they were snorkeling from the comfort of their own couch. This picture shows a school of fish swimming by the camera, something you might see if you watched the live stream.