Survival while Whitewater rafting is not the only type of survival that Patty encounters on her trip.  Read on…
By Patty Chang Anker

It’s 4 am and we’re on the beach, looking for turtle tracks. Actually, our guide William is looking for turtle tracks, the rest of us are stumbling along hoping we’re not stepping on baby turtles in the dark. It is so dark. The sand here in Tortuguero, Costa Rica, is black, volcanic, full of iron – William says if we took a magnet to it, it would stick.

I’m not getting my hopes up. It’s late in the nesting season – at its height this beach would be full of tourists waiting to watch mother turtles lay their eggs or babies swimming out to sea. This morning, we’re the only people around.

William cries out in a whisper (that sounds like a contradiction in terms, but it’s the only way I can describe how naturalists sound when they’ve spotted something amazing – a “Look!” combined with a “Wow!” and a “Shhh!” all at once). He has found a mother nesting. She is huge and in her element and Shannon and I whisper that we feel like intruders. Shannon, a fellow Trip of a Lifetime participant, has 5 cats and 1 dog at home and works for an animal rescue organization. More than anyone I’ve met she feels what animals feel. The mama turtle eventually decides to not lay her eggs and lumbers back out to sea. Shannon looks stricken. Oh no, I say. We’re sorry! Come back! But William says it is almost daybreak, not safe to lay eggs when predators can see.

There are so many predators. A huge percentage of eggs will be eaten, and of the turtles that do hatch, on their way out to sea they will need to survive a gauntlet – crabs that could snatch them from below, or birds that could catch them from above. Those that make it into the water will then face an ocean of fish waiting to eat them alive.

We keep walking. Patterns in the sand are now visible – we see ripples where thousands of baby sea turtles skittered down the beach. We missed it, too bad.

Then William calls out, waves us over – there is a baby turtle still in the nest! We watch with ‘bated breath as the tiny creature, not much bigger than a Nilla wafer, struggles out into the world. “It needs to imprint on the sand,” William explains. If it survives, this little turtle will one day, perhaps 30 or 40 years from now after migrating thousands of miles at sea, return to this very beach to lay eggs.

We find several more baby turtles, limp, and late – it’s getting light out, dangerous for them to be crossing the beach. William assigns each of us to a turtle – “make sure they make it!”- and we start cheering them on. I name mine Leo, for Leo the Late Bloomer, but when William says that most of the turtles at the bottom of the nest are likely to be female, we start naming them Lila, Leah, Leila, Lulu…

And here it is, the baby’s birthday and graduation day all in one. Lila, it seems like just moments ago that you were born (because it was!), and now here you are, ready to take on the world. Oh, the Places You’ll Go! Buena Suerte, amiga:

P.S. Check out the great work Shannon and animal lovers like her are doing in their community: http://www.hsapl.org/
In her next post Patty set’s out in search of more wildlife.

P.P.S. Confused about what Patty is doing in Costa Rica without her family? The Trip of a Lifetime starts here: http://upside-down-patty.blogspot.com/2010/11/ticket-to-ride.html

Coming up: “Wild Kingdom.” Now THAT’s not something you see every day…