It is pretty nerve-wreaking for a parent to get a call where a male voice on the other end asks to speak to your eight-year-old son. That's the call I got a few days ago. I remember going though all the possible internet things he could have accidentally signed up for, thinking the worst... The man calmly assures me that the news he has to share with my son is, indeed, of the good kind, great even - he, my son, is a proud parent of baby turtles....
The babies, whose arrival we've been anxiously awaiting for the last 70 days...
A bit of history:
A few months ago when the kids were visiting their grandparents in Ponce Inlet, my sixteen year old was having a bout of insomnia on a particularly warm night. Everyone else was long asleep, so watching TV was out of the question, and for lack of anything to do he grabbed grandpa's camera and walked across the street to the beach. It was about two in the morning, quiet, deserted, save for an Australian gentleman who was pointing to something ominously large on the sand. The thing he pointed to turned out to be a mommy loggerhead sea turtle, smack dab in the middle of digging a nest. My son stayed at a respectful distance and watched, not wanting to spook her, and later caught a few awesome shots of her heading home, into the water. Few people get to see something like this in their lifetime. The turtle patrol came in the morning and put the stakes around the nest to keep people away from it, gave it a number, so they'd know when to expect the babies, and that was that.
When the kids got home, we called the turtle patrol people and for the sum of $35.00 adopted that nest, and two others on the same stretch for the little one, just so there'd be no jealousy.
My parents checked up on the nest a few times a week, and then, one day, the stakes were gone, as if it had never been there. We were supposed to get a call when the babies hatched, but no call came in. We wallowed in disappointment for a few weeks, and then, the strange man called for our youngest, because his nest most definitely hatched, and the nest was to be cleaned in two days...
Coming home from school that day, my little one was all giggles, hoping against all logic, that maybe he'd get to keep one of the babies, after all, isn't that what it means to adopt something? We 'adopted' two dogs, and nobody told us that we'd have to let them go. He was coming up with names for the little ones...
The day of the cleaning, we were to meet my parents and the man named Bob from Turtle Patrol at 6:30 by the nest. The dunes were windswept, and the ordinarily white powdery sand was covered by brightly coloured seaweed as far as the eye could see. Bright green, yellow and orange grasses splayed out from their sturdy roots, grasping at the air with their tentacle-like branches, accidentally catching crabs and sand fleas in their folds. The moon shyly peeked from behind a cloud, promising to be enormous in no time, as we walked towards our two remaining nests, our feet making the dunes sing...
Bob Shawn, the man on the phone, g
ot to digging a very narrow hole in the nest that belonged to my little one. The little one was all giggles and impatience, and ran wildly between the nest and the ocean, wishing he had brought his boogie board... Finally, all the empty egg-shells, soft, and just a tad off-white, were pulled out, and two eggs that for whatever reason did not hatch. Each, the size of a ping-pong ball. Over 70 broken egg shells and no dead turtles in the nest or any of the last minute stragglers, meant that this was a very good, healthy nest - one of the few of its kind, where every baby turtle made it out on their own. Needless to say the kiddo was both, thrilled and disappointed. There were no babies to "adopt" after all...
We moved on to our last nest, the last hope for the little one to catch a glimpse of turtle babies. This one was originally laid too close to the water and the Turtle Patrol volunteers had to relocate it into the dune to keep it from flooding. Bob got to digging. The moon now came out in all its glory, a glowing circle of mother of pearl hovering low over the choppy ocean. We watched Bob at his work as he dug deeper and deeper into the tightly packed sand, and then suddenly, he plopped a squirming little creature onto the sand in front of us. The baby was a healthy two-inches of awkwardness, unsure of what to do with his flippers, and all that sand, and quite obviously without a clue as to his whereabouts, but oh so cute... This one was followed by another dozen or so - a pretty decent catch for any turtle watcher. 
The 40 or so yards to the water's edge lay through the dense forest of seaweed and a minefield of crab holes, each harboring an opportunistic hunter. We quickly removed all the seaweed in the immediate path of our babies, and lined them up facing the water. It was still too light out for them to naturally navigate to the sea, and the moon was almost full, shining all too brightly all around them. The babies were terribly confused, mistaking the lights of the city behind them for the glow of the water. Hubby had his camera out and was on picture taking duty, as the rest of us tried our best to keep a watchful eye on our flock. 
At first, cautiously, weakly and painfully, they crawled towards the water, gaining speed and strength with each step. Had we simply picked them up and put them in the water, they would surely die, we were told, as they would not be strong enough to swim out to the Gulf. The crawl over the 20 or so minutes develops their strength just enough that they can make it...
Too many turtles and not enough eyes almost proved a disaster for one of our babies, who was snatched by a crab, and had to be rescued by Bob.
After a while, we stood up to our knees in the water and we watched the last of the babies swim out towards the moon's reflection in the Ocean. Only one in a thousand hatchlings makes it to adulthood. The females that survive the next 25 years will inevitably come back to the exact same spot on the beach, and lay their eggs, when the time comes. I hope my kids are there to greet them, and share the magic with their kids.
For now, wishing our babies a safe journey home.
To learn more about turtle season or to volunteer if you are anywhere in florida, visit: www.turtlepatrol.com
To watch a little slideshow thingy we put together about Ponce Inlet, click here.
Copyright (C) 2008, inna hardison. please, don't steal from the starving artists, it's illegal and well, just plain freakin' wrong!
:-)
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