Turtles in the Night

on watching the sea turtle nest and chasing wonder

Picture of our turtle taken by the Archie Carr Wildlife Refuge volunteers

I’ve been known to do drive crazy distances in the name of adventure. Like the time I announced to my husband at 9:00 one night that I wanted to take the kids and drive sixteen hours to catch the full solar eclipse the next day. (Long-suffering husband that he is, after he realized I was in fact NOT joking, ended up going with us).

Or the time I finally scored the rare campsite I’d been eyeing for a year and a half and decided to drive almost five hours to camp for one night. (Long-suffering husband once again accompanied, and was rewarded with not one, but two flat tires.)

I’ve driven hours to gardens, aquariums, zoos, mountains, forests, trails, battleships, museums, beaches, rivers etc. As long we have our audio books (ok, and the tablets), everyone is pretty chill about it, and my husband just rolls with it, or rolls his eyes at me-one or the other.

But even I was questioning my sanity as VBS at our church came to a close and I remembered I had booked a turtle walk on the other coast the next evening. It didn’t even start until 9:00 pm, and we would be out on the beach until at least midnight. What was I thinking???

Well I’ll tell you what adventurous, energetic Amanda was thinking:

“It is only three and half hours away, there is plenty of time to get there, not a bad drive, it will be an amazing experience, a cherished memory…” insert other whimsical thoughts here.

But realistic, exhausted Amanda, (she can be kind of a drag sometimes, always reminding me I have limits, ) was now resurfacing after a week of coraling energetic kids, being inundated with loud music, and enduring way too many late nights.

All the kids were tired. My husband had work to do around the house and our business the next day. I almost scrapped the whole thing. But my middle son, who is obsessed with turtles, and is made of the same “let’s go” material as me, begged and begged. “

So I put on my “fun mom” pants and booked a campsite so we wouldn’t have to drive back that late at night. The three other children opted to stay home with dad and watch the MBA game. Win-win.

It was worth it. So worth it.

I will never forget my son’s face, lit by the soft red glow of the flashlight, as he sat on the sand beside his beloved sea turtle.

What is a turtle walk? All sea turtles are federally protected, as most people know. Many species are vulnerable and endangered and are facing more than a few hurdles to survive and thrive in our ever devoloping world.

There are many efforts to protect and help these amazing creatures and one of the leaders in these conservation efforts has to be Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge. Along the 20.5 miles of beach that makes up Archie Carr, somewhere between 15,000 and 30,000 sea turtles nest each year. That’s 25-35% of the all the Green and Loggerhead nests laid in the entire United States! There are numerous places in Florida that do these walks, but I knew our chances of getting to see one would be highest if we could make it there!

Boardwalk at Archie Carr Wildlife Reufge

Part of their educational and conservation efforts are their turtle walks. A small group of people gather with the volunteers at the refuge, and as one gives a presentation, about a dozen others are walking the beach looking for turtles emerginng from waves. Once it is determined the turtle is a Loggerhead (that is the only species their permit from the FWC is for), and once she digs her hole and starts to lay that first egg, they radio in and guide the group quietly to the beach to watch the rest of the process.

We had been waiting for about an hour when we got the radio call. I tried to prep my son that we might not get to see one. After all, you can not predict nature. Everyone in that room was trying not to be too expectant; a preemptive defense to ward off disappointment. But the excitement palpably spread over the room when we heard our guide’s radio crackle in the announcement.

We had all made our way silently to the boardwalk that led to the beach, when we got the bad news.

False alarm.

She was a Green Sea Turtle, not a Loggerhead. Due to the limits of their permit, we would not be able to go down to her. Actually, the volunteers said, they had identified several Greens nesting that night. But we had to wait for our Loggerhead. So we all stood on the boardwalk trying to make out the shapes on the beach, imagining every dark shadow a turtle doing what she was made to do.

I was so proud of my son. I knew he was disappointed, but he was keeping such a good attitude. The guide said we still had a chance, but it may be an hour or more and asked if we wanted to go back to the learning center to wait.

And it was the craziest thing. It was hot. It was humid. The bugs were terrible. But no one made the move to go back in. It was like we were all entranced by being so close to something extraordinary. High on raw nature. We didn’t want to go back to the artificial lights and walled in rooms with pictures of the beach and replicas of Sea turtles. No, we would stay.

No one was allowed to have their phones out during the walk. So there were no lights, no distractions. It was so still. Nothing but the sound of waves crashing to the shore. I kept hearing people whisper how bright and beautiful the stars were. Everyone was either looking up at the sky or out at the sea.

And I thought, “This is how it is supposed to be. Why do we so freely allow the noise of the artificial world to creep in and take over? Why do I settle for busyness and empty entertainment when this is where my heart feels so whole?” I always feel closest to the Maker when I am closest to the earth He made in it’s rawest form.

“Turtles in the night,” a hushed voice whispered beside me. I looked over at my son, body leaning over the boardwalk railing, face full of expectant awe. I smiled at his poetic choice of words.

The wait paid off.

We got the call that there was Loggerhead about a mile down the beach. My son was at the front of the pack, side by side with our guide, first to the scene. Patiently he watched her drop her clutch of 100 plus eggs, as she painstakingly covered her eggs with carefully packed sand, and then as she laboriously moved side to side to camoflauge where she had hidden her brood. It felt as if the whole group held it’s breath as we watched her heave her exhausted body back down to the shore and glide graecefully back into the black sea. The excitement rolling off my son as he watched this show of nature was worth all the tired that I felt.

We ended up seeing about ten other turtles that night, the tracks of close to twenty. One came up not too far from where our sea turtle was. And on our way back down the beach to the parking lot, the guide gave the command several times for the group to stop and wait as more of these ocean giants made their way up from the waters in the distance.

Photo from Archie Carr Website, not our turtle.

We would see their dark forms break from the waves then make their journey up towards the dunes. Sometimes we would pass tracks and follow them with our eyes and barely make out their silent silhouettes.

I know that riding in the car for hours to traipse into the dark and fight humidity and bugs for an experience like this may not seem worth it to many people, or more honestly may not be realistic for many people.

But there is so much magic to be found in all our corners of the world. Beauty is accessible to us all. The magic, I think, is slowing down long enough to observe the world our good God took the time to create; to breathe in the fact that He thought beauty an essential part of His creation.

That He designed a creature that lays eggs on the beach in the middle of the night, stars that relentlessly poke through dark skies, waves that rhymically beat the shore - whether humans are there to observe them or not.

Turtles in the night - an invitaion. His world spins on, and we can choose to put the phone down, turn the lights off and join in the wonder, or we can let the world of artifice crowd in.

I’ve learned that to brush up against nature, to feel the awe of being a created being in a created world is is so important for my walk with Jesus.

The good news is woven into the maternal labors of a sea turtle. Gospel hope is splattered across an inky sky. The truth of His love crashes with the constancy of the ocean waves.

You don’t have to be a crazy person like me and drive hours to find the wonder. Just sit on your porch, look out the window, go to the park. Be still.

I say this as I sit in the passenger seat, eight hours into a summer road trip. (We can talk about my hypocrisy later.)

Only about sixteen more to go until we get to the rocky coast of Maine. Long-suffering husband is faithfully at the wheel and has only had to do one minor car repair so far. There is something of the gospel in that as well, but that’s another post.