What parent hasn?t longed to stick a homing device to their teenager?s behind to figure out where they?re going when they disappear?

The Bermuda Turtle Project did exactly that during their annual turtle tagging drive when they attached a satellite transmitter to an unusually large turtle youngster. The aim was to catch a turtle big enough to be ?leaving home? and follow its route to mating grounds in the Caribbean.

Sea turtles arrive in Bermuda when they are young and spend their juvenile years in our waters, before moving on. They have long lives and can stay around Bermuda for several decades. Not a lot is known about where they go when they leave Bermuda.

Bermuda Turtle Project Coordinator Jennifer Gray said the new satellite tracked turtle measuring 72.4 centimetres in length and weighing 55.5 kilograms was a recapture and had been tagged last summer. It was named Bermeylan.

?In Bermuda, large sub-adults are targeted for study in order to address the question of schedules and routines of departure from the Bermuda platform,? said Ms Gray.

The annual turtle tagging is a joint venture between The Caribbean Conservation Corporation (CCC) and the Bermuda Aquarium, Museum & Zoo. The project is manned by several marine experts from Bermuda and overseas and a large body of university students and volunteers.

Most sea turtles that are captured for study in Bermuda waters are green turtles. Usually, they are given a number, tagged (if they haven?t been previously) and released, but a rare few are fitted with a tracking device.

Dr. Anne Meylan, a senior research scientist for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and longtime Bermuda Turtle Project participant said, ?We haven?t tracked anything lately partly because of funding constraints. The second reason is that the technology is not good to look at small scale movements.?

A sea turtle that is being tracked in one small location in Bermuda may look as though its been walking on land or swimming full circle around the island, when really it?s staying in one place. The tracking is more accurate in terms of long hauls across the Atlantic.

Ms Gray said capturing Bermeylan and getting him to the research vessel wasn?t an easy task.

?This was one of the most challenging turtles I have ever had to get it out of the net and out of the water,? said Ms Gray. ??I have never in all my years had such a fight. It wasn?t just because it was such a huge turtle, but also because we were in a ripping current with the net partly wrapped around the reef. That net is 2,000 feet long and almost impossible to lose, but in a current it has a tendency to double up on itself, or get caught on a rock or reef.

?The course participants got together and threw out names. One of the most popular names was ?Bahogami? - which is a dialect from the Caribbean which means ?damn near drowned me?.?

After the large turtle was examined, course participants decided on ?Bermeylan? out of respect for project supervisors Dr. Anne and Dr. Peter Meylan.

Since its release the turtle hasn?t gone anywhere at all, but all that could change in the blink of an eye. Nobody knows why but sea turtles decide very quickly when it is time to move on to the next stage in their lives.

?For us it is very exciting to get a turtle big enough to put a transmitter on,? said Ms Gray. ?It takes awhile to find a turtle big enough. For a piece of equipment like that you want the turtle to go, you wouldn?t want it to stay in Bermuda.

?So far Bermeylan has been still sitting at the same spot at the same stake. It is like he is saying: ?I am here. I am not going anywhere today?. If he left the transmitter behind it would be on the bottom on the reef and wouldn?t be sending a signal. The fact that he is surfacing and sending a signal is good.?

If Bermeylan spends the next year and a half hanging out in the same spot, the Bermuda Turtle Project will simply recapture him, change the batteries in his transmitter and set him free again.

?There is no magic way of knowing when they are about to leave,? said Ms Gray. ?We just know we get very few turtles in the size category of Bermeylan. We have taken a blood sample to determine the gender, but that will take a few months. You can?t tell the difference until they are mature.?

There have been a few other turtles who have been satellite tracked. Dr. Meylan said one named ?Jennifer? after Ms Gray, was sucked into a Florida power plant intake valve and injured. It was rehabilitated and released and is now cruising the Florida Keys.

Another turtle named Bermudiana was tracked down into the Caribbean until he made his way to a Cuban soup pot.

This year?s turtle tagging period broke a number of records for the Bermuda Turtle Project.

?There were a lot of firsts this year,? Ms Gray said. ?We also experienced the most intense thunder storm while out turtle tagging. We had the most singing. There was the most bonding of people and developing of friendships.?

This year students from Bermuda, the United Kingdom, the United States, Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago and Aruba, swam an average of 26.5 miles over the course of eight days. They helped to capture and release 176 turtles.

?We have had two high points in the turtle project,? said Ms Gray. ?The first one was in 1991 when we caught 31 turtles which was an amazing day. Then, a couple of years ago, we caught 41 turtles at a place called Cow Ground Flat. This year we caught 48 turtles. That represents a very high density of turtles in one small area. It certainly is an indication that Bermuda has a very high density of sea turtles and we have a very healthy population.?

Sea turtles in places like Hawaii, Florida and the West Indies have been found with a disease called fibropapiloma. It causes tumours to grow on the turtle. Although it is not automatically life threatening, the growths can impair vision or feeding. Luckily, the disease has never been found in Bermuda.

?That disease has been linked to pollution and unstable water areas,? said Ms Gray. ?Bermuda could be free from it simply because we are receiving the first life stage of the animal. We are getting animals who are coming straight off the open ocean who have never been exposed to inshore waters, and they are coming into a pristine oceanic environment.?

Although Bermuda?s sea turtles are physically healthy they have another life threatening problem to contend with - humans.

The saddest task the Bermuda Turtle Project has each summer is performing necropsies on sea turtles who have been killed by speeding boats.

?This year we found one that had been suffering from a bad propeller wound for about two days,? said Dr. Meylan. ?It died that night. Turtles in the Ferry Reach area have a lot of boat injuries.?

Ms Gray said when they found this injured turtle they hoped against hope that they could save it.

?But in the end, we just couldn?t,? she said. ?It was just too badly injured.?

She begged boaters around Bermuda to slow down and enjoy the scenery a little more.

?It is good for people to know that there are a good number of turtles that live in Ferry Reach, particularly around the shallow flat on what we call ?Stonecrusher Corner?,? she said. ?There is no restriction on speed across that corner. We found a turtle out there with propeller slices right across its back that had probably been hit. It was kind of devastating to see something like that. It was a young animal.?

But she said it isn?t just at Ferry Reach that turtles are injured or killed by joyriders, it?s everywhere.

?Sea turtles are all around the shallow reef platform, particularly on the northern reef platform,? she said. ?They are more vulnerable inshore in shallow sea grass beds. They are very good at avoiding boats. They have accurate hearing, it is just in shallow water there isn?t much place for them to go.

?Sometimes the turtles also become used to boats and become more complacent. They wait a little while longer to move and they don?t react as fast as an offshore turtle would. If someone comes in a high powered boat their reaction time is not going to be as accurate because of what they have learned over the years.?

Turtle signs have been posted in some high traffic boat areas. Ms Gray thought that the signs increase awareness of the turtles.

?A lot of people have commented that they have seen the signs and then looked around for the turtles. They say ?we didn?t realise there were turtles there?. They wouldn?t have looked without the sign and by slowing down they saw them.?

The paths of Jennifer, Bermeylan and the other satellite tracked sea turtles can be seen on a special website at www.cccturtles.org .