The Perry’s and Turtles

This week has brought some very enjoyable experiences.

On Monday the Perry's arrived in Grenada. We were expecting their arrival and Griff had the VHF radio turned on while he was on the boat. Finally about 3pm he tried calling them since we had heard nothing from them. "Artemo, Artemo, Artemo this is Mystic Journey, Mystic Journey, Mystic Journey" went out over the airwaves. Back came Julie's voice saying they were at the entrance to Prickly Bay trying to anchor without steerage" Can you come and help!!". We got into the dinghy and headed out into the bay. We found Artemo at the entrance, already anchored. Their steering system has stopped working as they were coming towards Prickly Bay and they sailed the rest of the way using the auto pilot.

When I saw them standing on the deck, I realized how much I was missing family and friends. It was great to see them. We went on board and Griff proceeded to help Graham figure out what had happened to the steering and between the two of them were able to fix the problem. For more information on their adventure check out their blog site listed under links.

Last night we headed out on a turtle watch with the Perry's and three other couples. Leatherback turtles come to a couple of beaches at the north end of Grenada every year from April to July to lay their eggs. There is a group here called Ocean Spirit that is doing research on the turtles and conducts tours to help generate interest and knowledge of the leatherback turtles. These turtles are the largest reptile found on earth. They can grow to 2 – 3 meters in length and weigh up to 1 ton. The oldest one found was determined to be 80 years old. Except for the time the females spend on land laying eggs the turtles spend their entire lives in the water and are found all around the world including waters off the eastern coast of Canada.

We were fortunate in what we got to see during our watch. After a 2 hour drive to the north end of the island we arrived at the beach at approximately 8PM. No turtles were on the beach and it was raining. Shortly after we arrived, Dora, our guide, told us there was a turtle coming out of the water a short distance down the beach. Sure enough we looked and there was what looked like a large rock approximately 100 meters away moving away from the water.

We watched it move up onto the beach, find a spot that she liked and then start to "plant" herself. To do this she used her front flippers to push the sand away from the front until she arrived at wet sand. They call this "swimming". At that point her upper body was slightly dug into the sand and she started working with her back flippers digging the hole for the eggs. This is what you see in the picture.

It is looking at the turtle from the back end. The colour is due to the use of red lights rather than white because white light distracts the turtles. Unfortunately just as the hole was getting deep enough one of the researches accidently knocked some loose sand into the hole and the turtle immediately stopped digging and moved to another site and started the process again, but soon abandoned that and headed back to sea. Dora said that it may have been because of the number of people standing around, but that she would come back in a couple of days. By this time there were two more turtles further down the beach, so off we went. The second turtle we reached had started digging her nest, but the researchers noticed she was digging down into another nest so they were filling in the hole as quickly as she was digging and eventually she gave up and headed to the sea.

On the way to the third turtle we happened to notice a couple of hatchlings heading down to the sea. Dora followed their trails back to where they figured the nest was, but could not see any other hatchlings coming out so everyone but Griff headed back to watch the other hatchlings continue their trip to the sea. Then Griff called out that there was another one coming out. He said it first appeared as a little black dot in the sand and he began to wonder if it really was a turtle because it wiggled once and stopped (he says is vision is questionable at the best of times!) One of the researchers went to him and confirmed that is what was happening. We went back to the nest and watched the researcher assist 21 hatchlings out of the nest. We watched these hatchlings head to the sea. Some of us assisted the hatchlings by smoothing out the sand in front of them to make it easier for them to travel to the sea. We learned that these hatchlings will swim for 72 hours straight immediately after they enter the sea to ensure that they are in a safer area of the sea. Hatchlings are prey for anything bigger than they are – birds, fish, etc. As well if they come out of the nest too soon or too late in the night they become dehydrated quickly in the sun and die. For every 1000 hatchlings that make it to the sea only 1 will survive to return in 15 years to lay eggs and start the cycle again.

We finally got to the third turtle. She was working on her second hole for the night. The first one she had gotten down deep enough that she encountered clay below the sand and could not dig any deeper because of the clay. The sand layer at that end of the beach was not as deep as at the other end of the beach. At the second hole she was also into clay, but the researcher was helping her and between the two of them the hole became deep enough that she started laying eggs. Because of the clay the researcher would not leave the eggs in the hole because the clay would not be warm enough to hatch the eggs and if any did hatch they would not be able to dig their way out. The researcher caught the eggs, put them in a bucket and then later dug another hole down the beach and buried the eggs there. When the turtle finished laying eggs she filled in the hole with sand and tamped it down well with her back flippers.

So we were able to see all parts of the process – nest building, egg laying, covering the eggs and the hatchlings – even though some parts were done with assistance by the researchers. The researchers also tag the turtles, insert microchips and measure the length and width of the shell. They keep track of the turtles this way and can tell when they come back to lay again and where they travel.

Watching Alex's and Amelia's response to the evening was as enjoyable as watching the turtles. They were very keen on helping the hatchlings and were amazed at the size of the turtles. They were able to stroke the back of the female after she laid the eggs and before she finished covering it.

The next blog will be about BEING BACK IN THE WATER!!!! Thursday at 2:00 we become boat people again. At Last!!!