releasing leatherback turtle hatchlings on the beach, Bahia de Tortugas 

Bahia de Tortugas, Nayarit

An emotional experience for all of us, perhaps Tas in particular. We found ourselves here by chance- none of our maps or camping guides had mentioned this place. As we drove down from San Blas towards Puerto Vallarta a sign by the roadside pointed towards Bahia de Tortugas. Tasman's lifelong obsession with all shellbacked creatures means that anything even vaguely related to turtles warrants closer inspection; And a ten kilometer gravel road was nothing to some of the washboards of Baja!

We found ourselves driving through a flood plain, flat and well farmed with fertile soil and shallow wells dug here and there for irrigating the crops, corn, beans and grazing for cattle. As we neared the coast and the soil became more sandy, coconut plantations appeared and soon we were in the thick of a very large grove of palm trees. This was more like a forest than a grove, stretching for several kilometers along the ocean, perhaps a kilometer deep, and our track had now turned to run parrelel with the coast, so we were driving right through this beautiful stand of palms. The afternoon sunlight shone through the fronds above and bathed the entire scene in a flourescent green and gold glow. It was obviously taking us somewhere special, this track.

Eventually we wiggled down to the end of the lane and found that we were not the only ones to have thought this looked like a nice spot. Some very fancy houses appeared in the distance and we feared for a moment that the whole thing might have been privatised. The great thing about Mexico, however, is that NO-ONE can own the beach! So we were able to drive right through the palm trees some distance away from the houses, and park completely free, right on the beach!

This truly was a lovely campsite, we had to position ourselves quite carefully to avoid the considerable risk posed from above (apparently more people are killed by falling coconuts than by sharks); but once safely tucked in, our view was the ocean, our shelter the rustling palm fronds, our floor a carpet of soft grass. As we stepped out of the palms onto the beach we saw that the pristine, palm fringed sand stretched away to the south as far as we could clearly see; and only in the far distance, perhaps six or eight kilometers away did the coast turn again, where the next rocky promotory jutted into the Pacific.

It all seemed pretty idyllic and there only remained a couple of missing pieces for the "nice spot" jigsaw to be complete, and, sure enough this place had it all. Perfect waves were wrapping around the rocky point a few hundred yards up the beach to the North!. A very pretty river ran out into the sea below making for an easy paddle out in the deep water created by it's flow. To cap it all, beach side of the smart houses we had seen when we first arrived, was a small cluster of buildings which to Tas's delight, turned out to be a government sponsored Turtle conservation camp.

Apparently the sea turtle population in this area had become so threatened by the long history of human persecution that the Mexican Government stepped in to try and sort the problem out. They established a number of these camps up and down the coast. The staff patrol the beaches where the turtles nest, at night when the eggs are being laid. Once the mother returns to the sea, her mission accomplished, the eggs are recovered and incubated at the camp. 50 days later they hatch and within a few hours the hatchlings are released into the sea.

By controlling the time of day and the location of the release; and by protecting the eggs in the first place, the percentage of live hatchlings returned to the sea is as high as 90% of the original egg numbers. The result has been a 30% increase in the population of returning adult turtles over the 15 years the programme has been running- an outstanding success given the catastrophic decline in numbers over the prvious two hundred years. Maybe, just maybe, they have acted in time.

We were lucky enough to be here during one of the peak release periods; so one evening, with Meche, the marine biologist in charge, we took trayloads of tiny turtles down to the shoreline and placed them carefully on the sand. Of four hundred hatchlings, newly emerged from their eggs, not a single one set off in the wrong direction! After a puzzled pause, and in dribs and drabs, they set off towards the surf, poor little things! Washed in repeatedly and thrown onto their backs by the surge of the waves, we were kept busy putting them back upright again whilst keeping an eye out for circling vultures, gulls and pelicans.

After half an hour or so, with sand flies biting our ankles and wrists (no insect repellent allowed!), we were watching the stragglers battle their way into the vast ocean. Such tiny creatures in such an awesome space. It was an enormously uplifting experience, but one tinged with sadness at the thought of the struggle ahead. So few of course, would escape predation, pollution, fishing nets and longlines, and eventually return to this beach.

For the next 8 years they would drift and swim around the great circuit of the Pacific currents. Down with the California current to the equator, across with the equatorial drift and north again past melanesia into the Kuro Shio, the Pacific version of the Gulf Stream which shoots past Japan. Eventually, when they are ready, the circuit brings them home, to the very beach from where they departed, even though their only experience of that beach would be the brief struggle from nest to surf line. The level and power of such instinct is beyond our comprehension. The very lucky ones may return annually, after this first long swim, to nest again for up to a hundred years. Remarkable creatures indeed.

Inevitably we holed up here for as long as the water lasted; and with surf every morning, turtles to release in the evening... could probably have spent the entire year here really! But... we're on a mission. Could be we'll never find somewhere as nice again!