It’s Turtle Time! Hatching Turtles at La Tortuga Feliz

8:30 AM
Day 6 at La Tortuga Feliz
Turtle time!
Turtle Tally:
Jonathan: 119 babies (3+63+53) + 0 big + 12 Exhumation
Carrie: 61 babies +1 big + 1 baby in egg
Got to the hatchery with Zoe at 10:00PM. Neil had released a nest during his shift, but one more had just come up, so we let it go. Another one came up on a check around 11:00, so Zoe released that one.
About midnight, Zoe was making a round through the hatchery and yelled back to me, “Ay Jon, we’ve got ’bout 25 over here!”
So we started taking those out and measured and released 60 turtles. It was fun to hear their shells clicking together (they don’t really make sound, other than the little peeps coming from one that got stuck in the fence – we got it out,) and see so many at once. They are so strong at birth. It’s amazing to know that the turtle nest is 1 1/2 – 2 feet deep, and the turtles come inching their way out of the dirt, little heads first going side to side, side to side, then front flippers come out of the dirt, and within seconds there’s a whole little turtle above the ground. Fantastic. Holding them to measure them, it’s really possible to feel their strength as the only way to hold them for sure is on the sides, otherwise they can easily wiggle away from you with their front flippers.

So we released the 60 and came back to the hatchery to see if we had more out of the same nest. We saw three and were planning to take those out, but heard click, click, click coming from a different nest. Looking over, we saw that another nest had come up, and there was lots of movement there too. So we took those out and there were 53! We measured just 5 since we had 3 to take care of from the other nest, and took them out to the sand to let them flap their way to the ocean.
I haven’t seen a large turtle yet, but I feel like the travel here is complete with having gotten to take care of not 1, but 3 nests coming up within 3 hours of eachother.
Zoe and I had a conversation about the craziness of India (she and Dave are avid travelers – this is their third round the world jaunt), and how as someone in India, in most cases you’re automatically viewed better (class-wise) if you’re hanging out with someone who’s white.
This made me think about M’s (not his actual name) comments. We met M in San Jose. He’s a German, who is living and working as a tour guide in Nicaragua. He has a Nicaraguan wife, and a Nicaraguan daughter. He said that he’s been thanked on a couple of occasions by his in-laws (his wife’s parents) for “improving their family’s gene pool” by having a child with their daughter.
All I can think there is “What’s up with that? It’s not like someone is telling them that German is superior to Nicaraguan, or telling Indians that American is superior to Indian. Sure, there’s pop-culture and exported films, etc. It would be one thing if someone else elevated themselves above you by force or societal structure. But to choose to elevate someone else above you because they are white, or German (and for no other reason than that – not by who they are or what they do in life, but – by genes or race alone) is asinine. There’s some sort of self-chosen inferiority complex going on there, something which I don’t really understand.

On a separate note, it’s amazing how common experience brings people together. I know that I can call or email nearly anyone I’ve met at La Tortuga Feliz and they will be happy to tour me around their town or even let me stay with them in their home city, simply because of what we’ve experienced here together in just 6 days. It’s really neat to know that.