Move over sharks. Meet Windy, 5-foot leatherback sea turtle who pinged off Florida coast

Mention ping and shark aficionados — you know who you are — and they immediately know to turn to Ocearch to check the location and track their favorite shark.

White shark, tiger shark, hammerhead, bull, whale. Ocearch has tagged them. Not only tagged, but keeps track of them via "pings." And those pings, which is when their transmitter breaks the surface to send their location to a satellite, are accessible to viewers around the world via Ocearch's website.

➤ Great white shark Breton pings off Juno Beach

But there is more on Ocearch's tracker website than just sharks. You can also track sea turtles, and a couple pinged Tuesday morning off Florida's east coast, including a 5-foot 2-inch leatherback. You can even track ... wait for it ... Ocearch's ship. We won't ask where they placed the transmitter.

916-pound sea turtle Windy pings off Jacksonville, St. Augustine, Florida

Windy is an adult leatherback sea turtle who weighed 916 pounds and was 5 feet 2 inches long when she was tagged in April 2023.

She pinged off Jacksonville and the St. Augustine coastline early Thursday morning, July 24, at 5:18 a.m. She must like those early-morning conditions in the area. She also pinged near the same spot at 2:07 a.m. July 23.

Windy does seem to favor the east coast of Florida, where she's traveled as far south of Port St. Lucie. But her track also shows a lot of activity off North Carolina.

Windy was first seen on Juno Beach in 2003 and has since been encountered nesting nine times by researchers at Loggerhead Marinelife Center, Ocearch said. Tagging partners include Loggerhead Marinelife Center in Juno Beach and Florida Atlantic University Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute.

Loggerhead sea turtle Cecil pings off Deerfield Beach, Florida

Cecil is an adult female loggerhead sea turtle who weighed 201 pounds when she was tagged in April. She's been staying in the same general area since then. She was 3 feet 1 inch long.

She pinged at 6:45 a.m. July 23 off Deerfield Beach and again at 11:42 p.m. just south of Fort Lauderdale.

Researchers from Loggerhead Marinelife Center in Juno Beach tagged Cecil April 26, 2024, after she laid her first nest of the 2024 nesting season on Juno Beach.

"Cecil is a part of a long-term study aimed at understanding loggerhead clutch frequency, or the number of nests a single female lays within one breeding season," Ocearch said.

"This project was funded in part by a grant awarded from the Sea Turtle Grants Program. The Sea Turtle Grants Program is funded from proceeds from the sale of the Florida Sea Turtle License Plate. Learn more at helpingseaturtles.org."

Ocearch ship far from home, near Azores

The M/V Ocearch is a 126-foot vessel equipped with a custom 75,000-pound hydraulic lift and research platform, which serves as both mothership and at-sea laboratory, Ocearch said on its website.

It was "tagged" July 7, 2024, at Mayport, Florida. Ocearch considers the M/V Ocearch as a female adult with a weight — shhh — of 1,162,000 pounds.

Katharine the shark captured world's attention, was repeat visitor to Florida

Katharine, a 14-foot great white shark, disappeared after her last ping in November 2020. Rose was tagged during OCEARCH's August 2013 expedition in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Katharine amazed researchers. According to OCEARCH, the average battery life of a tag is about five years. Katharine's lasted for seven years. After she had pinged on October 2020, OCEARCH confirmed Katharine held the record for the longest a shark has been tracked in the Atlantic Ocean.

➤ See where Katharine loved to swim

Katharine spent the first several months of 2017 swimming around between Fort Pierce and Titusville.

She also spent a lot of time near the Treasure Coast and throughout Florida in 2014.

After disappearing for a few months, Katharine popped up east of Vero Beach in April 2017. She wandered around on a generally northward path, pinging several times off Brevard County in May 2017.

She made quite the Florida "road trip" in 2018.

She pinged offshore of the Sebastian Inlet at 7:27 a.m. May 12, 2018. At 5:01 p.m the same day, she swam in as close as The Monster Hole on the south side of the inlet, which is only about a quarter-mile off the beach.

The next morning, she headed into deeper water. By 6 p.m. May 13, she checked in at about 40 feet of water off the St. Lucie Inlet. Then she headed toward the Boynton Beach Inlet.

She pinged in the Florida Keys before entering the Gulf of Mexico, where she spent June gaining more fans before swinging back south and heading toward Sarasota, where she pinged about 60 miles offshore at in July.

Katharine was 'sassy' great white shark with her own Twitter account

Described as a "misunderstood but sassy girl just tryin' to get some fish," Katharine had her own Twitter account, which has almost 60,000 followers.

What is Ocearch?

Ocearch describes itself as a "global non-profit organization conducting unprecedented research on our oceans' giants in order to help scientists collect previously unattainable data in the ocean."Our mission is to accelerate the ocean's return to balance and abundance through fearless innovations in critical scientific research, education, outreach and policy using unique collaborations of individuals and organizations in the U.S. and abroad."

This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Track sharks, sea turtles for free with Ocearch