Turtles - A highlight of the trip

Turtle were a highlight of the trip. From incidental sightings in open water to crunching conch under water, from underwater visits in the night to a night trip to shore to follow tracks and watch nest making, we were fascinated by their size, speed, and their activities. We saw loggerhead, green turtles, leatherbacks, and Kemp Ridley.  

Green turtles in Marathon Turtle Hospital

Loggerhead in rehabilitation at the Marathon Turtle Hospital

Marathon Turtle Hospital is the first turtle hospital in the USA. There are now more than 20 hospitals for turtles. It has salt water pools and tanks, ambulances to transport injured turtles and to release them, surgical rooms for operating on injured turtles, and biologists to study and care for them.  There are 2 main issues that affect turtles in the keys – trauma injuries and viruses.  Trauma injuries are typically boat accidents with turtles which cause air to be trapped under the turtles’ shell and makes them buoyant. Unable to submerge, turtles cannot find and eat food, so they starve to death.  This is an untreatable condition, so the turtles become permanent residents of the hospital.  One popular resident turtle is Bubble Butt, and that says it all.  The virus can be treated and once treated, a turtle becomes immune. These turtles are treated, rehabilitated and released. 

Two turtles mating near Anguilla

Open water sighting 

Swimming near the shore

Story of the Bump in the Night

Two sailors at breakfast, one said to the other, I heard a noise last night that sounded like a coconut bumping down the hull of the boat. What do you think it was? The sailor replied, a coconut!

When we heard a bump on the hull of our boat one night at an anchorage in Anguilla, we checked, and it wasn’t a coconut.  Perhaps we are aground, but the depth finder shows 12 feet deep, and there are no coral heads near our boat that we could bump. Sometimes in rough seas our swim platform falls down making a big bang. We checked and our swim platform was up and secured.

The next night we hear it and can feel it, too.  D checks the anchor line, maybe the snubber has snapped, like on the White Banks south of Nassau, but no, the anchor line and snubber and bridle are all fine.

On the third night we hear it again. D goes on deck with big flashlight and I sit in the cockpit looking around. It bumps the boat so hard the helm jumps and we flash our lights by the rudder.  It is a huge turtle! We ran it off, but it kept coming back. Once it tangled our dinghy tow lines around our rudder. D jumped in the dark water to untangle them. 

Maybe it was eating grass off the boat bottom, maybe it was scraping barnacles off its shell, maybe it was protecting its territory, but maybe, as D believes, it fell in love with the big boat. It is that time of year!

Remains of the conch shell eaten by 300 lb loggerhead

View from the top of the crunched conch

The Story of the Conch Crunching Loggerhead

The water is so clear, how clear is it?  It is so clear that you can see huge turtles lying on the sandy bottom in 10 feet of water 100 feet away.  D and I explored in the dinghy around Cay Sal Island, and on the north side we would see turtles resting on the bottom, and I would slip into the water with my mask, snorkel, and fins and quietly swim closer to watch the turtles under the water. Imagine my surprise when one of the loggerheads was eating a conch. There are conch everywhere, every 10 feet is another mature conch. Remoras, sucker fish, stick to the shell of the turtle, and when the turtle reaches down with its powerful jaws and picks up the conch and in one motion, crunches the shell, bits of the conch float back, and the remoras go crazy and swim in, out, and around the big head of the turtle. I was amazed and watched as the turtle finished eating and floated up, saw me, and gently swam in the other direction, I retrieved the remains of the conch, as I didn’t think D would believe me!  We thought turtles were herbivorous, but research showed that loggerheads eat other crustaceans. 

Mother turtle quickly descends beach to the water after laying eggs

Deep tracks of loggerhead lead from the water to the nest

Another mother loggerhead rests at water's edge

Night duty

We see new turtle tracks every day on the sandy beach. The turtles are busy making nests, laying eggs, and swimming off once their duty is done.  We dinghy to the beach one night on Cay Sal Island and walk up and down the beach watching for turtles to emerge. Before we go far a huge turtle is lumbering up the beach, but runs into rocks and turns to go back to the sea.  Its head is so heavy it drags it in the sand.  We continue walking, the moon is out, due to set about 2 am. We have small flashlights to guide our way and large flash lights if needed.  We walk north to Sunset Point and then south to Thatch Palm Point. It’s a long hike and D stakes out a seat to rest as I continue to hunt. If I see anything, I flash 3 times and D will come. I go a brief distance when I see by the moonlight a turtle emerging from the sea.  I stop, fall silent, to watch and confirm its intent. It lumbers up the shore making deep tracks. I flash D 3 times. He quietly approaches and sees the turtle and its tracks. By now the turtle is digging and we can hear the sand fly, but it’s too dark to see.  We move closer to the tracks and sit for about an hour before the turtle starts to leave the nest. We don’t want to bother the turtle, just observe.  She has done her duty and approximately 100-120 eggs are buried high above the tide line.  She moves quicker toward the water, downhill and less burdened.  What an experience!  In all we see four turtles emerge from the sea that night. 

Tracks in the sand on the beach under a palm tree

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We see new tracks every day 

Deep directional tracks from the water to the nest and back down to the water

A new nest under a palm tree

Turtle tracks of a turtle that decided not to nest here

More tracks ...

Criss cross tracks on shore

Stranded in the Pond

Cay Sal Island is like a donut, a pond in the middle surrounded by sandy beaches. The island is diamond shaped with soft rounded edges. We anchor on 3 of the sides – our primary side is the northwest anchorage because of the prevailing east winds, but we did anchor to the north briefly and on the east side for a few days. Because Cay Sal Island is so remote, it is a big advantage to be able to move to a favorable anchorage with wind changes.  We experienced current in all 3 anchorages and had to use an anchor bridle the entire time.  There is an inlet to the center where we explored a couple of times, finding exotic birds, sharks, trigger fish and a stranded loggerhead.   

Stranded turtle in the pond
Gone after high tide