Our paths were bound to cross some day, I had been told.On every beach, on streets, I had seen notice boards alerting me to its potential presence and urging me to watch out and protect it. I’d been busy hatching plans to meet one: a catamaran cruise? An exploratory swim with a local guide? And suddenly, there it was! “Hmmmm, driftwood”, I first thought on a solitary swim in the bright blue ocean when I spotted a small brown shape floating less than ten feet away. Imagine my surprise when the ‘wood’ dipped under the surface, only to reappear much closer a few seconds later, quietly staring at me! My heart missed a beat and I almost dipped under the surface myself! It was none other than a turtle who had decided to check me out! I gently swam closer and suddenly saw its imposing shell in the crystal-clear water. How could such a huge animal appear so weightless! Using its four paws as fins, it glided gracefully along the water at amazing speed. I then realized that it was followed by two other turtles, as in a flawless choreography. This graceful ballet, however, was only mine to behold for a few minutes before I was alone again in the magnificent Caribbean Sea. Maybe a mirage? Not so, as I would later find out that sea turtles are as fond of Barbados beaches as I am!
After that totally fortuitous encounter came my catamaran day trip. One of the afternoon highlights was the feeding of turtles! Unafraid, and with surprising agility in spite of their considerable weight (up to 300 kgs), they squeezed their way between snorkelers to catch the chunks of fish our devoted skippercum- diver handed out to them. The emotion we felt as they brushed against us was quite unprecedented. Not everyone condones this profitable activity, which is included in the cruise fee; some will warn against the risk of overfeeding the turtles and jeopardizing their survival skills. But the facts speak for themselves: turtles retreat as soon as they are satiated, and they’ll be far gone when the next swimmers dive in. In other words, tourists hoping to bribe those creatures with a helping of fish chunks are in for a disappointment. Now, in spite of appearances, life isn’t easy for turtles. Before they grow up to adulthood and can fend off predators, the dangers are plentiful. I couldn’t help wondering what their existence was like and how it began.
The answer came a year later. I was enjoying a picnic at the beach on a moonless night, with guests’ hands greedily reaching for slices of roasted breadfruit* over the bonfire, when someone let out a cry: dozens of baby turtles were waddling on their minuscule paws and heading straight towards the glowing fire, which they mistook for the moon rays that usually guide them towards their natural habitat, the ocean! I suddenly understood why city lights are a hazard for wild animals. Fortunately, my Bajan friends are well versed in turtle care; they promptly put out the fire and switched on the flashlights of their cell phones to lure the turtle hatchlings back to the ocean. The minute the tiny creatures – barely two centimeters long - hatch from the eggs which cradled them for two months, they start moving their baby legs and crawl along the sand to reach the water. It is a frantic endeavor, made more desperate by the threat of crabs hoping for a feast. The feisty ones soon overtake the laggards; healthier individuals easily outrun the lame ones. Some might not make it, I’m thinking anxiously, and I can feel an urge to pick them up and put them in the water. Don’t you dare, I’m told! Those dozen yards and their countless obstacles – a sudden dip in the sand, a seashell, a dead leaf - are vital to the newly-hatched turtles, not only to build muscle before they are tossed around by the waves, but first and foremost to memorize the beach where they were born so they can return and dig their nests… some 30 years on.
That’s right; monarch butterflies aren’t the only ones who return to their birthplace to breed after journeying thousands of miles. But unlike butterflies, turtles are not a gregarious species. The group of hatchlings breaks up as soon as they reach the first waves. Their mothers are long gone, walking back to the ocean as soon as they have laid their eggs, and each baby will be swimming away from its native beach entirely on its own, until it reaches another shore. Some 30 or 40 years later, those that survive – one in a thousand – will be back where they hatched, and the dangers they will face during all those years are formidable. Whether the threat comes from Mother Nature (predators, storms, invasive weeds), or human activities (ships, recreational boating, fishing nets, offshore drilling, plastic straws and bags, etc.), turtles will constantly be exposed to hazards on their journey back to their birthplace.
The struggle is far from over once they’re back. Where will they nest if the tourism industry has turned their beloved native beach into a concrete jungle? And supposing the beach is unspoiled, there’s the issue of fluctuations in sand temperature, not that one would expect it to matter. Wrong! It’s an essential factor in determining a turtle’s gender. Cooler sand (27°C at the deepest point in nests) will yield males, while hotter surroundings will yield females. As temperatures increase worldwide, so does the proportion of females. Will we live to see hermaphrodite turtles?
One may wonder why the sighting of sea turtles stirs up so much emotion. Could it be the contrast between their imposing girth and their incredible lightness? Or their yearning for their birthplace after a lifetime of independence? Or maybe, as we humans watch them irresistibly rush towards the ocean, we are reminded how fragile life is, even for us, from the minute we are born.
*Breadfruit : Large fruit that grows on a tree. A staple throughout the Caribbean islands, often used as a potato substitute
**Bajan (pr. bay-djun): noun or adjective, derived from "Barbadian”
Translated by Edna Setton
October 6, 2021