Turtle Walk Number 1

I wonder if we will find a turtle tonight. It would be nice to see a turtle, in particular a Hawksbill in real life, up close and personal. Kevin explained to us earlier that the Hawskbill can grow almost 3 ft in length; at school the turtles I help care for barely reach the size of the palm of my hand. Kevin also told us that they can live up to 150 years and reach up to full maturity in about 30 years. That means if we find one tonight, she will be older than me.

The turtle walk will begin around 8:00 p.m. Dr. Rimkus advises anyone going to wear long pants, and a long sleeve shirt to avoid being eaten by mosquitoes on the walk to the beach. I brought one pair of sweat pants with me, in hot environments I do not typically enjoy wearing long clothing, but I will try. There is a small breeze tonight that feels nice and the beach might have wind because of the ocean. Now that I think about it, I have never walked on a beach at night; I wonder what it will be like?

Everyone going on the first walk feels really excited, with the hopes of possibly finding a turtle. There are about 15 students going in this group. Before going we meet with Kevin, the local turtle man and lead scientist of Gales Point Manatee, who talks to Doctor Rimkus about the plan for tonight, and what we will do if we find a turtle. I am not sure how long we plan to walk for, but I am going to bring some water with me in case we are on the beach for a couple hours. Everyone also carries headlamps that will aide our vision through our walk during the night.

Dr. Rimkus says he will bring the satellite tags once we notify him of finding a turtle. We make our way to a small motor boat on the dock, and everyone climbs in. Some of the members of this group are veterans of walking, Kevin’s father Moses, who I hear tells good stories, has come, and some local kids named Austin and Elroy have also joined the turtle walk. I can feel the excitement and anticipation my classmates about this first walk as we are all alert in the inside of the boat. Many squeal as the boat pulls away from the dock, and we go off into the night to another side of the lagoon. As the boat cuts through the water one can see the phospholuminescence from bacteria that glow when disturbed in the water, and looking up I can see the sky is filled with an infinite number of stars.

We reach another part of the lagoon, and that has a small dock and path. Kevin steers the boat past the dock, and allows the shore to stop its movement. We all climb out the front of the boat, some of us splashing the water as we land on the ground, and we make our way to the path, that will eventually lead to the beach, but take 20 minutes to walk. I talk a little to Austin during the walk, and he tells me he has 17 years of age, and has been walking the beaches since he was about 10. Elroy joins our conversation and remarks that the 20 minute walk to the beach takes important time that could be used searching for the turtles, he says that cutting the time with a car would be useful.

From the light of my headlamp I can see vegetation surrounds the dirt path we walk on and further past the green plants lies a swamp area. As we walk further down the path the sound of the ocean, and waves crashing along the beach becomes apparent, and the g pace of the group quickens to reach the beach. We come to a small opening at the end of the path, that leads to a grassy path to the beach. Kevin brings the group to a turtle nest with wire over the top. He lifts the wire and digs down a few inches exposing a white element. Brushing the sand off, Kevin exposes more of the white object that turns into something resembling a ping pong. Kevin explains what we are looking at is a turtle egg, and they are protecting the nest until the eggs hatch. He says along the beach there are six different sites where the turtles make their nests, and he and the others walk the beaches to keep track of the turtle nests and to find new ones that need wire for protection. Tonight a nest on the south side of the beach will be covered with wire.

Kevin divides us into groups, but asks who would like to do the South Side walk that he describes as “arduous”. Emilia Jagura decides to try it, and goes off with Moses and another man with wire to search for a turtle and cover the nest. Kevin counts off the next group that will be going with him to site six, and then I am placed in the group walking the middle of the beach to site five. All of us ready and we walk.

Still, I am not sure how much time the walk will last, so I ask Austin who joined our group. He says that we will walk until we find the turtle, which might be all night. He says that turtles normally nest when the moon rises and that occurs around 2:00 a.m. Ideally he explains, the turtle walkers will rest all day and walk all night so they have enough energy. I ask him how many walks he completed when he finally found his first turtle. He said ten. It took ten walks until he saw his first turtle. Dang, I wonder if it will be that many for us.

So we walk, and the waves crash next to us, sometimes washing up all the way to our feet. There are many sticks and a few fallen trees along the beach. There is also A LOT of trash. Sometimes the small turtles will get stuck in the various plastic containers and never make it into the ocean. We walk and we walk and walk. The walk silent for most of the way, as we look for Hawksbill tracks. We walk, we walk, and walk, under a great big starry sky, and a bright moon slowly emerging among the clouds in the distance.

We see the other group in the distance surrounded around something. Approaching closer, I see that it is a nest surrounded by pieces of white flakes. An animal had entered the nest and destroyed every single hawksbill egg within. Our group felt sad, and we hoped more to find a turtle.

Again we walk and walk and walk and walk and walk. It’s about 2 am and time to stop. Well, maybe we will find one in nine more tries.