One of the many things on my bucket list has always been to witness a large turtle nesting. Yesterday that dream came true, when we saw a 1000 lb Leatherback turtle make a nest, then crawl an inch at a time back into a pitch black ocean that was pounding the shore with 10 ft waves. Unbelievable!!
We are in Bocas del Toro in the NW corner of Panama. Every place we have travelled around the world we always ask if the turtles are nesting. The answer has always been the same; you are here at the wrong time of the year. But this time we were told that the largest turtle of them all, the leatherback, was just starting to come ashore on Bocas del Toro. Three showed up last week. The nesting beach is about a 30 minute taxi ride, so we decided to go on a fact finding trip to find out what was involved. It turns out there is a local conservation group that patrols the beach all night long, monitors the turtles as they make land fall, collects the eggs if the nest is in a precarious location, and incubates them. The patrol people telephone a local restaurant / lodge operator when a turtle is spotted and for $10 they will take you to the nest. The hitch is no one knows when or where they will come ashore, but it is always at night. So we decided to spend the afternoon and night at the restaurant waiting for the call. The owner said he would take us back to our hostel after he closes up, usually around 1am. OK, this sounds like a pretty good deal to me.
After a bottle of wine, lunch, supper, and coffee we get the call. A group of us were escorted to the site at 11:30. The patrollers have infrared lights, so the whole scene takes place in sort of a mystical atmosphere, with this massive giant throwing sand 10 feet behind herself as she digs her nest. The flying sand hits me in the face as I'm kneeling down, trying to get a better look. She is breathing heavily as she labors to move her massive body around, dig a nest, and release her eggs. After an hour, she starts to move away from the nest. All the lights go off, including the infrared. It's pitch dark but you can make out this large form slowly moving towards the ocean. She measured 6.5 ft long,about 3 ft across, and 2.5 ft. high. The estimated weight is around 1000 lbs !! A monster. We walk beside her as she moves down the slope and the waves start to hit her in the face. I go in up to my knees then stop. The sound of the ocean is very loud as there is a storm surge with waves crashing on shore at least 100 feet into the ocean, some places the surf is breaking 1 km off shore. It was an incredible sight and a very unique experience.
