Amazing night

I love the spontaneity of living here. I never know what each day will hold.  The other night Scott called me, "There's a turtle on the beach, I'm driving by - get the boys and jump in the car."  Sure enough, about one minute later we were jumping into our '98 Chevy Astro and booking it the short three blocks to the beach.  Scott drove right out onto the compacted sand, we ran through the misty rain and this is what we found.  

It's turtle season in Costa Rica, so every night mommy turtles are coming up onto beaches everywhere to lay their eggs.  There was a man working with a turtle reserve not too far away and he was looking out for this one.  After she dug her hole and settled in, the boys moved closer to see the eggs dropping into the hole.

After she finished laying her eggs, she moved her flippers and covered the hole with sand.  Then she rocked back and forth and did a little dance to smooth the hole to make sure her eggs were covered and safe.  When she moved away she had done such a good job you couldn't even tell anything had happened there.  Then she turned around and headed back to the ocean.

There she is, swimming away.  She is an Olive Ridley Sea Turtle for those interested.  (My camera battery was basically dead - it was really hard to get pictures!)

After she left, the man from the turtle reserve went back to dig up the turtle eggs.  They would not be safe on the beach here in Jaco, so he takes the eggs over to the reserve, protects them and then releases them back into the wild when they hatch.  The man from the reserve only had two gloves, but he let the boys take turns digging up the eggs and placing them into a plastic bag.

We counted 116 eggs!  Isn't that incredible?  Kai was especially thrilled to do this.  When he saw the turtle laying eggs he was very concerned.  He told me he was thinking right away about the eggs getting destroyed.  He was remembering another scene from a few weeks ago, talking to a homeless man.

The homeless man said he was laying on the beach at night and watched a turtle lay her eggs.  He was hungry so when the turtle went back into the ocean, he dug up the nest and ate the eggs.  Kai watched him squeeze lime onto an egg and eat it right before his eyes.  So I'm pretty sure that's why he was worried about this mommy turtle. 

It's for reasons like these that the Hermosa Beach turtle reserve is working to conserve these turtles and their nests.  The man from the reserve said they have already cleared over 150 nests from Jaco beach and taken them to the reserve.  It was really exciting to be a part of the conservation efforts and help to save this mommy turtles' eggs!   I was just having visions of my boys all working as little ecologists. 

Another thought, I was just reading in a book about the importance and spirituality of caring for creation.  The author was saying that, "Modern men and women have lost their connection with creation.  We're always insulated from it by shoe leather, cotton-polyester, glass, metal, plastic, HVAC, and screens of many kinds!  ...I can't help but believe our souls are starved for the company of God's creatures." 

He goes on to say, "If I could live another life, I think I would devote it to ecology, because I also believe that this is a truly spiritual and Christian work.  Genesis begins with our mandate to take care of God's creation, and never has our failure to do so been more acute than now.  Learning to live as caretakers of creation and friends to fellow creatures must be at the core of Christianity."  Interesting, huh?