The Senior and I had the opportunity to go to the Turtle rescue to help release some hatch-ling turtles and spend the night at the lovely Casa de Tortuga. All this because I had the winning bid at a Sailfest auction .
I f you have never been there for a sunset turtle release, go. Go now, go next year but by all means go. Turtle releases are done from August to March .
The volunteers do nightly turtle patrols the 15 Km of Playa Blanca and Playa Largo to locate the female turtles. Then they
stay with her to protect her from predators and poachers while she lays her eggs and see that she gets safely back to sea to repeat this cycle again. Next, they move the entire nest of eggs to their incubator area where the eggs are placed at the same depth they were found. Each nest is labeled as to type of turtle eggs and the approximate date expected to start hatching. During prime turtle season, they patrol the beach from 10 or 11 at night until dawn. This is very important to locate and protect as many turtle nests as possible. The survival rate is only 1 in 1,000.
The night we were there, March 6th, we and about 20 others arrive at a little sheltered
class room area for an interesting educational presentation of the life cycle of the turtles, how the waters of Mexico are home to many varieties, and what the general public can do to help more turtles survive. After a question and answer session, we adjourn to the beach and lined up behind a line drawn in the sand. Just as the sun is setting, the volunteers place 2 hatch-lings in our bowl, then we are instructed to slide the turtles out of our bowls onto the sand and watch them head
towards the ocean. This an extremely important step, and a beautiful site to watch as they move over the sand memorizing this exact location. If she is female and if she
survives to 10-15 years of age, she will return to the very place we released her. She will come ashore to lay her eggs and the cycle will continue. If he is a male his sole mission in life other than survival is
finding a female at the right time.
On this night about 200 hatch-lings were released, some were very quick as if they knew exactly what their mission was, others were slower and a couple didn’t quite know which direction to go, but eventually they all got to the ocean and we wished them success.
We went back to the classroom/store made our donations, bought souvenirs, happy in the knowledge we had done something to help. As this very worthwhile project is funded
strictly by donations. We retired to our lovely quarters to relax and sleep as I need to be up at 5 to go on turtle patrol on the ATV. As it is very late in the season for turtles to be laying, they are only doing one patrol a night, we did not see any turtles or nests. Still a pre dawn ATV beach ride on Playa Larga and Playa Blanca offered an exceptional view of a sky full of stars, than I have seen in years, crabs skittering across the sand and few birds and a
duck or two, a 30 mile round trip that had me back just after first light of day. Quite the adventure! One I plan to repeat next year during prime turtle season. Signing off KO
of gifts. There are little booths with purses, shoes, lingerie and the more traditional gifts of flowers, sweets and stuffed animals and beautiful wrappings and boxes for the gifts. The restaurants are full that evening, we went out that night with 2 other couples and while enjoying an after dinner we were serenaded by a wandering mariachi band.
little restaurants and Boutique Hotels. This fair is a fund-raiser for the local Bomberos, which translates to: firefighters, EMT personnel and crocodile wranglers when one encroaches into areas where they could become a danger to folks. Twice over the years I have watched the Bomberos, rope, wrangle and tie up a croc then transport him to a preserve. This year they were raising money for a defibrillator, a worthy cause. Food and drink was available, as was a silent auction and a 50/50 raffle. Couple of different
mouth of the bay I had intended to go out just a ways into the ocean, but I think the tide may have been coming in as there were some low rolling waves at that point and I decided it might be too much work. I’m not a novice kayak-er, I have one of my own and have done several Puget Sound trips, but I’m not a strong kayak-er. Hell, I’m not a strong anything anymore. And due to previous experience landing thru the surf I planned to hop off before the waves break and swim or walk the kayak in. But as I approached the shore the surf looked to mild that I went for it. And shouldn’t have! The surf pushed me sideways a position you never want to be in a kayak . As I started to hop off the kayak it, came with me and dumped me in the sand with the kayak on top of me. I could lift it up but could not flip it off me. I lifted up I think 3 times long enough to catch a breath before the next wave came, then some one came and lifted it off and I was finally able to get up and walk in. When I have rented a kayak here before the staff was a little more attentive as to helping you get in. I think in the future just before I come in I might call the Senior to be available for one of my ungraceful landings and render necessary assistance. Also in the future I will get off before the waves and float it in.
the way we sunned, visited made new friends, I discovered folks that are probably related, distantly, but us Driscolls all originated from Ireland. As we anchored off Ixtapa Island Captain Jeff called for the panga from our preferred restaurant to come out to take folks ashore to eat and drink more. We were anchored about 200 meters off shore so another gal and I “jumped ship” and swam a shore ahead of the crowd and got us a great table. A couple of more also swam in but most took the
Zihuatanejo 