Sea turtle rehab
Trip Start
Mar 13, 2008
1
12
14
Trip End
Mar 29, 2008
Port Saint Lucie,
Florida,
United States
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
This group will accept sea turtles of all species that are found in the area stranded on beaches, by fishermen, scuba divers, etc. and try to fix their various illnesses and injuries and then release them back into the sea when they are ready. Almost all of their problems are caused by people. They get weakened by pollution which makes them susceptible to viruses, they are impacted with swallowed plastic so that they can't eliminate, they get impaled with big fishhooks and one had half its beak chopped off when caught by a long-line fishing boat. They probably just chopped it off the hook and threw it back into the sea. Sometimes their injuries are too severe and they have to live out their days in rehab.
The most amazing story is about a loggerhead turtle named Jonah who was coughed up by a big fish that had just been caught and boated by a sport fisherman. When the big fish was in the boat it coughed up this little baby hatchling it had just swallowed whole and alive! The little hatchling was unhurt and the fisherman brought it into the turtle rehab where they are raising it until it is big enough to be released.
After the turtle center we went across the road to the beach but it was so windy that we were being sandblasted so left after an hour or so.
As we were driving north along the beach road we could see these big parabolic kites up in the sky. Eventually we stopped and walked over to where we could see the beach clearly and discovered that the kites were attached to guys riding the water equivalent of snow boards being pulled along by the kites. The pictures don't quite do it justice. My bad.
Last baseball game today and then one more beach day tomorrow and then we depart to go backwards in time 'till it is winter again as we travel north. Boo hoo. I want to get home to spring the dogs out of jail, but it is going to be very hard to go back to winter.
