A BABY turtle nursed back to health in Weymouth after being found close to death 5,000 miles from home is being returned to tropical waters today after a two-year rescue operation.

Willy, an endangered Kemp’s Ridley turtle, was swept across the Atlantic in the Gulf Stream after straying too far from her natural habitat of the Caribbean.

She was found in an exhausted, famished and hypothermic state at Woolacombe, Devon, in January 2007.

The turtle, one of only 2,000 left in the world at the time, is normally used to balmy sea temperatures of 17C – and not the chilly 7C of the British waters for January.

Operation Free Willy sprung into action and she was taken to the turtle sanctuary at Weymouth’s SeaLife Park to recover.

The one-year-old turtle was painstakingly nursed back to health and fed through a tube for weeks until her body temperature and weight increased.

She was gradually put on a diet of shellfish and her weight ballooned from 6lb to 24lb and she has gone from 12 inches in length to 28 inches.

Yesterday, Willy was driven to Heathrow Airport and flown to North Carolina in the US.

She was kept in a special box and covered in a layer of grease to prevent her shell from drying out during the eight-hour flight.

She will be housed for a month in a rescue centre in the US to acclimatise and undergo final health checks before she is released back into the Caribbean.

Willy is one of only two Kemp’s Ridley turtles to have been found alive in British waters before.

Claire Little, a marine expert at the SeaLife Park, will be alongside her for the trip home.

She said: “It has been a long road for Willy but at last she is going home.

“Today is the culmination of a lot of hard work for everyone who has been involved in her rescue and recovery.

“I am sure there will be a few happy tears when she swims away.”

She said Willy was lucky to have survived the Atlantic crossing in one piece. She said: “They normally live off the coast of Mexico and Texas but Willy probably strayed just a little bit too far and got caught up in the Gulf Stream.

“We think it would have taken her a month or so to get here.

“When she was found her body temperature was 14 degrees when it should have been 24 degrees.

“Unsurprisingly, she was very cold and hungry and in urgent need of rescue.

“We monitored her closely and gradually brought her temperature up. Now she is a fit and healthy specimen who can be returned to the wild.”

Claire said Willy was healthy enough to have been released last summer but they were thwarted by American red tape.

Willy has been fitted with an identification tag before she is set free next month.