Journeys in Word

The crowds of tourists had long since left the black sand beaches, leaving only the crash of waves and our footsteps along the shore. I had landed my dream job, or so I thought, as an instructor for a high school sea turtle study in Costa Rica. I quickly discovered that my hormonal students preferred to scan their iPhones for a glimmer of Wi-Fi than river raft, horseback ride or patrol the beach for sea turtles.

Woken from their sleep in the wee morning hours, three kids were trudging beside me when our guide suddenly stopped and put her finger to her lips. In front of us was the unmistakable track of a gigantic green sea turtle. These creatures have everything going against them from the moment of gestation. Poachers, dogs and the tide compete for the chance to devour the eggs within the nest. If the young manage to hatch, they must patter to the ocean without being distracted by inland light, picked off by birds or eaten by awaiting bull sharks. Their endangered status is not particularly shocking.

Dry lightning in the distance lit up the cloudy sky for a few seconds and the turtle started digging her strong back flippers into the sand. The researcher looked at us and whispered, “Who wants to count the eggs?”

Hands crossed in that universal teenage stance, they adamantly refused. I happily took the latex glove and laid on my stomach behind her. The exhausted mother was deep in a trance, occasionally spraying a pile of sand into my face as she settled into her spot. I had never seen a birth, much less been the stand in midwife for a beautiful endangered creature. Part of me felt like a scientific intruder tainting a sacred ritual. She started to sigh and three squishy ping-pong balls fell into my gloved hand then rolled off into the nest. I clicked the counter in my other hand three times, silently ticking as more eggs emerged.

The counter stopped at 128. The turtle was now empty, but she had filled me with a sense of ethereal awe. The tiny lives in front of me seemed so hopeless, yet she had given them the chance to live. I felt grateful, not only to be alive, but to have that moment. To live, in itself, is a miracle, an opportunity not to be taken for granted.

Suddenly she started to shift again and a sandy flipper smacked my face. I quickly crawled backwards as she covered the nest and made her slow trudge to the sea.