Kitus-interruptus

[ricki]

... or how to really screw up a turtle love affair.

We had another night of good late wind. I headed to the beach at almost 7 pm after a squall passed to the south and temporarily took the wind with it. Anyway, the blow stuff came back and stronger than ever at around 16 to 20 kts. Life is good and despite being in the midst of the "off wind season."


From: http://www.e-zakynthos.com/

I'm tooling along when I seen something sticking out of the water and think, palm frond? I get a bit closer and see no it is a turtle, a good sized loggerhead (Caretta caretta). Closer still and I see its shell looks kind of strange like it is sticking up higher out of the water then natural. Oh, I get it, it's TWO turtles working up a batch of eggs so to speak. I have seen mating turtles on the surface before but it has been so long I can't recall when.


Digging out and ready to take on all the hungry birds, coons, jacks, waves, fatally distracting lights and more. What is it Orphan Annie used to say ... oh yeah, "it's a hard enough life."

I figure, lets leave these kooky turtle kids alone to finish up. Ray, the standup paddle surfer rescuer and vet. (more HERE) told me we need to be sensative to wildlife. They really don't have a lot of extra energy to deal with the likes of us when just getting the next meal or reproducing can take plenty of calories already. Unnecessarily spooking or diverting marine birds and the like is not helping. Life would be much poorer AND screwed up without them so have a care.

So, I gave 'em wide berth (about 60 ft. to try to avoid disturbing them with board noise) for a while and a tack, or two or three ... or six? WHAT'S up with these turtles, focus man, uh turtle, someone's bound to get tired if this goes on too long. Eventually they vanished and hopefully the deed got done.



Trying it on the beach.
From: http://www.dnr.sc.gov/seaturtle/

A video clip of what may be an amorous and nearsighted loggerhead having at a free diver appears below. I think the diver had a speargun mounted video camera so apologies for the gun aimed at the Caretta throughout the clip:



Wonder is this shooter dude heard about the divers years back off Key Largo that got scratched up pretty badly by a horny male with really bad vision. They have these nifty mounting nails on the front flippers that can do a job on soft skin but are just right for latching on to shell. Checkout the right flipper of the top turtle in the shot above this.