Turtle walking, pt I

I was supposed to have been at work that day, but I succumbed to the persuasion of my wife. My family was on a month long stay at the beach, courtesy of my in-laws. I had come down for several three day weekends – this would be the last one for this year. My wife talked me into staying an extra day, saying I could take one less day than I had planned for at Christmas. A helpful coworker rescheduled what meetings I did have on my calendar.
I had forgotten that she and her father had signed up for a ‘Turtle walk’ that night at the state park. He graciously said I should go in his place. The walk was not to take place until 9:30, so we went to dinner before heading out. We watched the sun go down over the marsh while eating some fine local shrimp and a steak. I washed mine down with a cold beer. We headed over to the state park a little early.

The weather was beautiful – just warm and with a nice sea breeze keeping the gnats and mosquitoes out of play. The sky was a darkening indigo with only the occasional high wispy cloud to be seen. There was no moon. We made our way to the classroom where the lecture preceding the walk was to be held. I had been here a day before with the older two of our children for the kids version of the program we were here for tonight. The kids program consisted of a lecture and a walk on the beach to look at the tracks of nesting mothers and the nesting sites – original and relocated. Children under 10 are not invited on the nighttime walk because of the late hour and the patience and silence required for the long walk (both in time and distance). I would find out how long (in time) that the walk would be later…

Lecture –

The state park staff is licensed by the Federal government to work with the Logger Head Sea Turtles who nest on this island. Part of their mission is education and they do a good job of it. Though I heard again most of the same facts that I heard in the previous presentation, the enthusiasm, or rather passion of the head ranger kept my attention. There aren’t many of these ancient critters left and we could easily be the last generation that knows them first hand.

Walk and night vision –

The rules for the walk are that we follow along behind the two rangers about 20 yards behind. With no flashlights, no moon, little ambient manmade light, and the light of the stars, the rangers are invisible to us who are not at the front of the pack. Our steps are guided, and stopped, by those in front. We, in turn guide those behind. The murmur of voices and shuffling of feet on sand is almost drowned out by the surf. Our eyes adjust, the world is cast in fine shades of the darker grays and lighter blacks. As our eyes adjust to the darkness – it really does take 10 or more minutes to reach your maximum sensitivity – we can see what they told us, the surf does glow dimly and is the brightest of areas down below the dome of the sky. We strain to make out anything in the shifting murk – we’ve been told what to look for – the appearance of a log floating in – but in dark tumbling surf, I lose all sense of scale and realize that it will take eyes more practiced than mine to see anything. Occasionally we are stopped as the rangers think they have spotted something or when those in front think the rangers have stopped.

Lights –

As we proceed away from the main park area, we leave the bright light at the Pavilion’s pier behind – this is the brightest light on the beach. I’m not sure why it is exempt from the “lights out rule”, perhaps because that would not be a good place for turtles to nest in the first place. The next light we encounter is the light at the state park’s campground bathroom. Though the ranger explains that they have tried various ways to minimize the light here, we (the herd) are still puzzled that a problem as seemingly simple as this could not be solved. As we work our way north along the beach, we can see the lights of distant houses, across the marsh, and the even more distant lights of Charleston. Even though the primary focus of the “lights out” program is the beach, our head ranger relates an anecdote of a homeowner on a creek behind the island who called her one night late in a panic. Baby sea turtles were climbing up on a dock shared with her neighbor and had been doing so for an hour. The ranger asked if her light was on and of course it was. The turtles had hatched, swarmed out and had seen this as the brightest light, distant as it was and unfortunately in the wrong direction.

More later...

This picture is from the day time walk with the kids. She is showing us where a turtle had nested the night before, her tracks were still visible. The rangers relocated this nest to get it above the high water mark. The pieces of straw in the were how they kept count of the eggs as they moved them - this nest had over 80 eggs (low end of the range).