It was a record year for successful turtle nests in 2008. The turtles, both hawksbills and greens, arrived early and stayed late, The Maui News reported today.

So late, that at Thanksgiving, Skippy Hau of the Aquatic Resources Division of the Department of Land and Natural Resources had to dig up a green sea turtle's nest at Spreckelsville to save the hatchlings from high surf.

"We normally don't have to deal with winter waves," Hau said this week, because nesting is usually finished by the beginning of November.

If he hadn't moved the eggs in a bucket, they most likely would have been swept away. "We got 23 hatchlings," Hau says.

Altogether, Maui's turtle watchers and helpers rescued 140 hawksbill and 122 green turtle babies who would most likely not have made it on their own.

Hau and Cheryl King, of the hawksbill nest monitoring group Dawn Patrol, thanked the more than 160 volunteers who scouted for nests, marked locations and guided Hau and Glynnis Nakai of the Kealia Pond National Wildlife Refuge to nests.

Since the turtles are listed as threatened or endangered species, it requires a permit to excavate their nests.

When a nest is examined, shells are taken for genetic analysis, and stragglers are often helped out. They may have been caught in roots or come out of the egg too weak to make the dangerous journey on their own.

At Big Beach, the Dawn Patrol watched nests virtually around the clock, scaring away predators like mongoose and ghost crabs, and helping little turtles through vegetation and, in one instance, out of a deep human footprint.

In 2008, Hau recorded a total of 917 hawksbill hatchlings, out of 1,322 eggs; and 539 green sea turtle hatchlings, out of 866 eggs. The bigger greens put fewer eggs into each nest, from 69 to 114 this year; while hawksbill nests contained as many as 202 eggs.

There are now celebrity turtles of both species who are reliable nesters.

Maui Girl — officially green sea turtle 5690 — became the first green known to have nested in West Maui in half a century and now returns every other year.

Orion, a hawksbill, laid five nests in 2001, the same in 2004, and at least four this year. Orion wears a data logger on the top of her shell, put on after her third nesting in 2008. She prefers Oneloa (Big Beach).

For the first time since a hawksbill nest was found at Oneloa in 1997, the Dawn Patrol confirmed two successful hawksbills operating in Maui in 2008. The other turtle, not named or even certainly identified, nested twice at Oneloa and may or may not have been the turtle that came ashore on Ohukai Road but did not nest.

Two hawksbill nests were discovered in Hana at Koki and Hamoa beaches.

"Keep an eye out for signs of nesting," says King, "and if you do happen to discover a nesting turtle, please keep your distance as they are easily scared away."

They are not, however, shy about testing the sand even in busy areas. Maui Girl favors the beaches at and around 505 Front Street. The shopping center management shields and turns off outdoor lights, which can mislead baby turtles who find the ocean by following the moonlight.

Hau says some were misled last year by the interior lights at Pacific 'O restaurant, but restaurant staff spotted them, scooped them up and set them on their way.

The turtles' human helpers endure boring nights and mosquito bites to watch the nests. The exciting moment comes when baby turtles start erupting out of the sand, sometimes described as like watching a pot going on the boil.

After as many make it out on their own as possible, the professionals go in for salvage and research.

If they can find the nest. Hau says Maui Girl probably made seven nests, but only six were discovered. "I don't know whether it is because the sea is rising, but the last three years there have been high tides" early in the nesting season, he said.

By carefully marking nests, turtle watchers were able to keep track, even though high water erased markings.

Besides the two, three or four hawksbills that nested — or tried to — on Maui last year, there were two or possibly three greens: Maui Girl; a turtle that made two nests at Spreckelsville, then a third a mile away at Kuau and finally a fourth (the Thanksgiving nest) back at Spreckelsville; and possibly another at Hana, where two forays by an unidentified turtle were seen.

Turtles also nest on Molokai, but with less organized attention from humans.

The last hawksbill nest erupted on Nov. 12, the last green on Nov. 27.

Turtles nest several times a year, a few weeks apart. The mother turtle crawls ashore, finds a spot and uses her hind flippers to dig a hole in the sand. Then she deposits her eggs, which hatch out a couple of months later, depending on temperatures.

The radio monitor on Orion showed some other interesting turtle behavior. For one thing, she repeatedly dived down about 30 feet at the same spot, apparently to rest. Where that spot was, the radio did not reveal, but between Aug. 11 and Aug. 23, Orion made 469 dives, about half to what appears to have been a nap spot. She usually stayed down about 90 minutes.

In 2004, Orion was tracked between nest trips to Nakaohu, near Nuu and about 12 miles south of Oneloa.

This year, after Orion laid her fourth (and probably last) nest, she swam to Oahu the long way, around Hana and up the coast of East Maui. It was a 150-mile trip, over two weeks, and ended up in the same place at the northern tip of Oahu where she spent the winter of 2004-05.

If you want to help watch for turtles, contact the Hawai`i Wildlife Fund through www.wildhawaii.org. If you want the best chance of seeing a baby dig its way out, volunteer for the 4 a.m. shift.

* Harry Eagar can be reached at heagar@mauinews.com.

For more Maui news, visit www.mauinews.com.