I don't remember exactly when I fell in love with sea turtles but it was sometime over the past few years. Seeing them makes me very happy. The first time I swam with them was in the Caribbean off the shores of Curacao in 2013. We were laying on the beach and suddenly we saw their tiny heads surface, so we grabbed our snorkel equipment and swam along side them. It was an incredible experience and the turtles must have been young because I remember them being about the size of a frisbee. Then this year we went to Galapagos and I swam with more sea turtles than I ever thought possible. These ones were much, much larger. We also saw turtles while diving in Thailand but Galapagos is where we saw hundreds of them.
That's me, snorkeling with a big green sea turtle near Los Tuneles off of Isla Isabela in the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador
Galapagos was where I learned more about the behavior of sea turtles which makes these creatures even more fascinating to me. Like salmon, sea turtles return to where they were born to lay their eggs. They come ashore once the sun has set, dig a hole, lay their eggs, cover them with sand, and return to the sea. There are seven different kinds of sea turtles and depending on the species, they lay 70 to 190 eggs at a time. Some turtles don't reach sexual maturity, i.e., lay eggs, until they are 40 years old. After the eggs hatch six to ten weeks later, it may take up to another week before the baby turtles have dug themselves out of the hole. Once out, they immediately waddle their way into the sea. It's amazing if they make it that far given that there are many native and man-introduced predators that love to snack on turtle eggs and baby turtles. Predators include many species of birds, raccoons, rats, and mice. I don't know what's more fascinating to me - that the turtles may travel as far as 1400 miles to return to their nesting grounds, or that temperature determines the sex of the egg. Yup, you read that correctly. If the temperature of the sand where the eggs are resting is above 85 degrees Fahrenheit then the turtles will most likely be female and if it's below 85 degrees then they will most likely be male. Crazy right?! I sure think so.
When we booked our week in Cozumel, Mexico, the thought never even occurred to me that we might be able to experience the sight of seeing baby turtles hatch and enter the sea. We went to Cozumel with the intention of doing multiple days of diving. The Airbnb apartment we stayed at had a photography book on the coffee table with beautiful land pictures from around the island. We were flipping through the book on our first day and spotted pictures of baby turtles on the beach. I immediately went into if-this-is-happening-this-time-of-year-I-need-to-see-it mode, and to my surprise it was. We were on Cozumel from August 15th - 22nd and the approximate date the turtles start hatching this year was August 15th!
What I discovered is that there are at least two organizations on the small island of Cozumel that take responsibility of monitoring the turtle nests. This includes walking the shores early in the morning to look for new nests, marking them, monitoring them and then helping the baby turtles make it to the sea. They can tell if there is a new nest simply by discovering turtle tracks on the sand up to an area that looks like it has been dug up and then filled back in. Once a nest is discovered, a small area is roped off and a marker is placed in the sand indicating the type of turtle and approximate hatch date. The type of turtle can be determined by the way the nest has been left. For instance, a nest that has been left in a deep hole a good distance away from the water is a green sea turtle, whereas the loggerheads leave their nests shallow and closer to the sea.
We paid a donation to volunteer with FP&M, a nonprofit foundation dedicated to cultural and social programs that benefit the Cozumel community. They have a Sea Turtle Protection Program where they allow volunteers to go with one of their marine biologists to liberate the baby turtles. In general, I am not a fan of mankind interfering with wildlife. I think that nature should take its course and the circle of life should happen as intended. However, I also believe that it is OK for mankind to interfere sometimes, especially when it is because of our behavior that a species is in danger. It is believed that the origin of the sea turtle goes back to the time of the Late Jurassic period, over 100 million years ago. Back then, the little guys didn't need to worry about kids digging them up while building a sandcastle. That's one reason it's important to mark where the nests are. I suppose the turtles had different predators back then, dinosaurs. I can't speak to how that affected them but I know that today the turtles have to worry about introduced species like feral cats and dogs and rats. That's why we intervene with the post-hatch process, helping the turtles get to the sea without being dug or scooped up and then eaten. We shouldn't deprive the native predators (opossum, mice etc.) of their food source but with hundreds of nests around, I'm told that there is still plenty of food for them.
We met in town at 5PM and after about a 20 minute drive arrived in Punta Sur which is an area on the Southeast coast of Cozumel. Our biologist took us there because she believed that we'd find a nest that was ready for liberation. She warned us that there was no guarantee we'd see baby turtles at all that night, but she was very hopeful. We arrived at a loggerhead nest and she proceeded to put a long metal pole very gently into the sand. She explained that this special instrument is used to see if there are eggs, or hatched turtles. To my surprise, she started digging in the sand right away and suddenly we were looking at a baby turtle. What?! Just like that we found turtles waiting for our help?! She showed us how to gently manipulate the sand to find turtles. Jake liberated the first baby and it was one of the most magical moments I have ever witnessed.
Jake with the first liberated loggerhead baby turtle
My face says it all
The newly hatched turtles were much smaller than I expected them to be! I thought that their shell would be soft and fragile but it wasn't, it was already firm. They had so much energy! Their four little legs were moving so rapidly it was alarming. One by one we removed 67 turtles from the nest. We also found three fully developed turtles who were no longer alive and several unfertilized eggs. After we took them out of the nest, we did not immediately release them into the ocean. We placed them in a styrofoam coolers so that we could transport them to another beach for release. The biologist said it was because there was too much seaweed in the water where we were, blocking the path for them to swim to sea. She also said that there were too many frigate birds around. I felt like now we were intervening a bit too much bringing them somewhere else, but what do I know? I'm not the marine biologist. After less than a ten minute drive it was time to wish the turtles luck and let them find their way into the sea. We gently took them out of the cooler and placed them on the sand about 20 feet away from the edge of the water. That they have this instinct to go to the sea is absolutely amazing. Mama turtle isn't around to show them the way, they just know.
Last year, over 18,000 turtles were released off the shores of Cozumel. We were told that only 1 out of 1,000 turtles will make it to adulthood. We may have given them a helping hand against the raccoons and vultures, but once they are out in the sea they are on their own.
Uncovering the baby turtles from the sand, having them in my hand and seeing them waddle into the ocean are memories that will be forever etched in my soul. It brings tears to my eyes reliving the moments as I type this. I don't know why it was so special to me but tears of happiness were shed multiple times that night. It's something I'd like to do a dozen more times and in the future share it with loved ones. Experiencing this again is something I'd plan a vacation around. It's hard to find the words to convey the happiness that this experience brought me.
~ Jesslyn
Happiness
Up close and personal
You can do it buddy!