Last month, I took one of the best trips of my life. I've traveled quite a bit, so saying this really means it. It honestly was one of the best trips of my life. We stayed at a resort called Hotelito Desconocido and lived the good life. No phones, no TVs, and hardly any electricity for that matter. Just Beach, Sun and Amazing Food.
My favorite thing to do the entire trip was to release baby turtles at sunset. The resort lies on a turtle sanctuary and has a staff biologist who cultivates eggs shortly after they've been laid and hatches them in holding pen. Then, once they've hatched, he digs them up, puts them in a big
bucket and lets the guests of the hotel release them into the sea. 3 out of 4 nights, we 
released more than 150 turt
les. Simply Amazing! So, here I am, lining the turtles up to go into the sea and watching the turtles begin their slow and scary walk into the big surf (and it was some big big surf on this beach). Next, a wave came in and wave caught me by surprise--it obviously caught the little fellas by surprise too, as they washed back up on to the beach some 20 yards down and 3 yards up the beach as compared to where they started. We made sure they all made it into the sea, then went about our business of drinking and eating. The little fellas (and they were little), had a full night ahead of them, swimming into the sea and trying not to become dinner for some big fish. Sadly, we were told that only 1 in 1000 of these guys would make it back to the beach. Thanks,Anne for capturing this awesome sequence. You are a better action photographer than I could ever hope to be.
If you ever get a chance, visit this place and experience what it is like to vacation. I'll most certainly be back.
My favorite thing to do the entire trip was to release baby turtles at sunset. The resort lies on a turtle sanctuary and has a staff biologist who cultivates eggs shortly after they've been laid and hatches them in holding pen. Then, once they've hatched, he digs them up, puts them in a big
bucket and lets the guests of the hotel release them into the sea. 3 out of 4 nights, we 
released more than 150 turt
les. Simply Amazing! So, here I am, lining the turtles up to go into the sea and watching the turtles begin their slow and scary walk into the big surf (and it was some big big surf on this beach). Next, a wave came in and wave caught me by surprise--it obviously caught the little fellas by surprise too, as they washed back up on to the beach some 20 yards down and 3 yards up the beach as compared to where they started. We made sure they all made it into the sea, then went about our business of drinking and eating. The little fellas (and they were little), had a full night ahead of them, swimming into the sea and trying not to become dinner for some big fish. Sadly, we were told that only 1 in 1000 of these guys would make it back to the beach. Thanks,Anne for capturing this awesome sequence. You are a better action photographer than I could ever hope to be.
If you ever get a chance, visit this place and experience what it is like to vacation. I'll most certainly be back.
4 comments:
I've always wondered why they don't just dump the turtles directly into the ocean. Are they supposed to learn something about life by getting their ass kicked by the surf?
Essentially, that is what we ended up doing for the ones who weren't quite strong enough to make it themselves. The stronger ones, on the other hand, were just fine and didn't need our help at all.
One of the staff memebers at the resort told me that yes, the turtles HAVE to walk some of the way into the ocean. Because of the language gap he couldn't articulate in English (and I couldn't understand in Spanish) just what the turtles were supposed to learn. They probably have to calibrate their inner compass or something...
Whoops. It looks like I stole Kirk's nickname for a minute on that previous post. Sorry for the clutter.
Anne
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