At Sunsets Door - Olon, Ecuador

Thursday, December 3, 2015

I was walking along the water's edge here on the beach a couple days ago. I was poking along, looking for interesting things when I spotted what appeared to be a black trash bag stuck in the sand up ahead of me. I was upset that someone would leave something like this on our beautiful beach, and so I worked my way up to the tide line to investigate. When I got to the "trash bag" I got a bit of a surprise.

It wasn't trash at all! It was a good-sized sea turtle caught up in the shallow water. It appeared to be dead, or so I thought upon my initial inspection. Since I was the only person around, I began talking to the turtle, hoping to get some sign of life. I was rewarded when she raised her head slightly and opened her sad eyes, looking helplessly up at me.

My guess is that she came up during the night to lay eggs on the beach, and couldn't get safely back to the water before losing her strength. Since the tide was low, and had gone way out, she was about twenty yards or so from any water at all. I don't know how long she was laying there, but the sun was shining brightly overhead, and it was probably cooking her inside her own shell. The sun here on the equator is very intense, and it doesn't take long to get a sunburn, so it made sense that she was probably extremely dehydrated.

Having never encountered a sea turtle quite so close-up and personal, I wasn't exactly sure what to do, but I knew she needed to get into the water to have any chance at life. I got a hold of her shell at top and bottom and tried to lift her into the water. She was heavy, and since I have a balky back on a good day, it took me a while to get her into the shallow water. I pushed her along as best I could until the incoming waves started to roll over her a bit.

I heard a woman's voice behind me asking me if the turtle was alive. I turned and told her it was, and she came down to the water to help. The two of us continued pushing the turtle into deeper water, and after a half-hour or so, she started showing some strength. Her flippers and back legs responded, and she was making every effort to swim into the waves. She wasn't quite strong enough to swim through the  crashing surf, so she kept getting washed back into the shallow water.

My assistant thought that everything was okay and continued her walk back towards the main beach. I spent another thirty to forty minutes helping my new friend back into the deeper water every time the incoming tide forced her backwards. She made a valiant effort to break through, flippers pumping and holding her head up high. I was pretty stoked!

Unfortunately, she didn't make it through the waves. She was pushed back once more into the shallow water, but this time she turned around on her own and headed back out. She raised her head and looked right at me; I could almost feel her gratitude. And then she started pumping her flippers and off she went. I think she made it that time, because I didn't see her again.

I've had some adventures since arriving here, but this one was probably the best. The worst part of it is that for the first time in weeks I had gone to the beach without my camera. I don't have a single photo of this event, but I have some terrific memories!

Hasta luego! See you soon!


Mark


If you haven't read any of my books yet, let me offer you a free copy of my first one, Serpent's Curse. It's a fun, quick read, with a little bit of a dark twist. Here's a link for a PDF copy:

      http://www.cocoabeach.com/bradbury/Serpent%27s-Curse_Mark_T_Bradbury.pdf

Let me know if you like it! Thanks!