August 23, 2005 - Tortuguero - Turtle Babies & Turtle Mommies

This morning , we took a chartered flight into Tortuguero. I got to sit next to the pilot! And got to watch him fly the plane and play with the little knobs. I have never been in such a small plane before- seat a maximum of 5 passengers. We flew over San Jose , then over Braullio Carillo National park. The clouds were very pretty and it was a very scenic flight. It was quite exciting watching the landing from the front windscreen. So much so that I missed seeing the endless trails on the beach created by turtles moving in and out of the sea .

Tortuguero NP is quite a magical place. It is like the Venice of the jungle. Narrow canals cutting through the jungle, navigable only by boat. We took a guide scenic boat tour that morning and saw kingfishers, toucans, bats, howler monkeys, spider monkeys, caiman, river otter, tortoises, and a SLOTH! Wish we could find that elusive manatee.

This afternoon, we went on a guided walk on the beach of Tortuguero, in hopes of possibly finding some hatching green turtles. We were told that only1% of all the nests on the 18 mile beach were hatching at this time (i.e. too early in the season). Lucky for us, our very knowledgeable guide identified a nest that had hatchlings. I think he saw the trail created by the hatchlings leading from nest to sea. And he started digging into the nest. Sure enough , he dug up about 15 little leatherback hatchlings. There were so cute!! Little baby turtle friends. About 2 inches long. Once the hatchlings got their bearings, they each started waddling off towards the ocean. Some were faster than others. Right before the water, there was a little cliff . As the hatchling, tumbled down the cliff, some would flip over. And some were better at flipping back than others. Some got help flipping back over from our tourist companions weary of watching them struggle and not quite making it. Once in the ocean, our little turtle friends will now have to try and find safe haven to grow big. Probably none of them will make it, but perhaps, just maybe, I might see one of them again whilst scuba diving in some other location far far away in years to come.

This night, we went on the turtle walk to seek out green turtles laying eggs. The access lots on the beach were distributed to the different lodges by lottery and we unfortunately got the stretch of beach furthest away from town. It took us about 30minutes to walk there from town. When we got to beach, we got to follow a turtle going back out to sea. She was about 1m wide and had turned back to sea without laying her eggs. After that we had to wait over an hour before we could get to see another green turtle finally laying eggs. Apparently it takes them a long time to dig their nest and if you disturb them too soon, they will abandon their nest with laying their eggs and turn back to sea. But I got to see what I came to Tortuguero for- to watch the turtles lay their eggs- round white ping pong balls, about 100 of them deposited into a upside down funnel shaped chamber in the sand. Then she buried them, packing sand tightly over the eggs with her hind flippers while mobilizing sand backwards with her front flippers. While she was burying her eggs, she actually dug unknowingly into a previously set nest- turtle eggs were flying! And she threw sand at me when I was behind her. It was another long walk back to town afterwards. Oh we got to watch the moonrise while on the beach.