The brilliance of the sun was blinding beyond the jagged border of shade cast on the beach sand by the palm frond awning above me. Hot and grainy caramel coloured beach sand stretched out a lazy minutes walk between the awnings shady border and the sparkling frothy white surf of the sea.
Digging my elbows into the table I was sitting at, I lifted myself up and swivelled my head and body to the right to examine a bulge in the sand within the border of the awnings shade. The bulge of sand seemed to be growing and swelling and heaving as if getting ready to give birth. Black circles and stars began appearing in the swelling bulge of sand and what appeared to be a sharp black shark tooth pierced the surface of the bulging sand in more than one location.
“Andale! Rosa! Traeme una bolsa de agua, pronto!” I heard screamed from the kitchen, as the bulge in the sand grew bigger and bigger. Just then, Rosa appeared running with a bucket of splashing water in front of her, her small heels and ankles kicking up sand into the faces of her brothers and sisters running behind her. The whole family seemed to be heading for the bulging sand ahead of them so I got up from the table and followed them, walking carefully and wondering fretfully whether I should have stayed seated at the table.
The commotion of children around the bulge in the sand had a joyful humour to it which brightened the dance of the brilliant sunshine above the waves and hot beach sand of the Pacific coast of Mexico. By this time the border of the awning’s shade had moved, exposing the bulge in the sand to the bright hot sunshine. Many of the children had to squint their eyes in the sunshine as they focused on the sand in front of them and Rosa had to apply emergency braking to her fast moving heels and ankles in order to bring the splashing bucket of water to rest as closely to the bulging sand as possible.
The bulge in the sand had now given birth and what seemed to be thousands of tiny turtle flippers and heads moved and scurried in every direction, straining to get away from the hands of the delighted screaming children. Rosa’s mother’s voice thundered above the commotion of the children: “Rosa! Que presa! No te perdi ninguna de esas turturas, oigeme! Guardalas en la cocina!”
“Oh no!”, I thought to myself, all these baby turtles are destined for the kitchen and the bellies of the hungry family I was residing with! Not one of the turtles would get away! I had to save at least one of them I thought.
And so, as the last of the children dropped to his knees grabbing this way and that and depositing tiny fistfuls of turtles into the bucket, I managed to spot one baby turtle go unnoticed, ahead of the rest but covering itself with sand. I launched myself frantically towards it, knocking one of Rosa’s cousins out of the way and grabbing at the sand. I was very happy and quite surprised to find the turtle alive and kicking in my hand when I stood up grinning triumphantly at the marauding children and holding the turtle up towards the midday sun and rolling surf. Destiny! I thought. This one would be saved and would head out to sea to years of life and adventure.
With the turtle held out in front of me, I walked purposefully towards the surf. Where the small waves met the sand I turned and looked back towards the bustle of children around the bucket. The bustle had stopped and all the children including the adults had followed me and now stood in a half circle around me, fifteen curious expressions fixed on their faces, some of the children giggling and pointing but all of them silent, not a word while waiting and watching. Taking their silence as a frosty resistance to the tiny turtle’s freedom, I turned defiantly towards the sea and bent down to wash the sand off the turtle and place it gently on the beach, head first towards the surf which covered it.
The turtle wasted no time in taking its chance and as the first ripple of surf covered it, its flippers resembled a propeller as it motored towards the deep sea. We all strained to catch a glimpse of its small shell as it was lifted up in the sparkling clear crest of a wave that washed it out towards the shallow and sandy crystal green sea shimmering in the sunlight before the heaving dark blue of the deep sea far beyond the breakers. The midday sun threw sparks on the wave tops and pulled shimmering glistening stars through the cresting wave tubes near the shore. Now there was no sign of the baby turtle, only a flock of diving sea birds beyond the breakers broke the sound of the rolling surf with their excited calls before diving on their prey below them.
I looked back towards the audience on the beach expecting a few cheers or expressions of happiness but was met with silence and an embarrassed shuffling of feet, no one said a word. Rosa’s mother was frowning as she squinted her eyes in the sun, looking back towards the sea and I couldn’t be sure but it seemed if one or two of the small children were crying. We walked back towards the beach hacienda in silence, Rosa and her cousin stooping briefly to pick up the bucket of splashing turtles, over a hundred of them, and place the bucket in the kitchen. I passed off their “strange behaviour” as a bizarre Spanish/Mexican cultural phenomenon, convinced I was in the right by giving at least one turtle a shot at life. At least one turtle would survive, I thought, but still, something worried me about Rosa’s mother’s frowning face. She was the mother of eleven children, most of them now adults and her face told of years of experience with children and the sea. She had lived on that beach for over fifty years. There was something in that pained frowning expression on the beach that concerned and puzzled me for the rest of that day.
Later, towards evening as I was sitting at the table reading, I heard one of the children Mauricio screaming my name: “Gabriel, Gabriel! Vamanos por la playa! Vamos a jugar con las turturas!” It was just after sunset and the first faint shining of a few stars were visible on the opposite side of the horizon to the fading light of the setting sun in the West. The moon was not due to rise until much later during that time of the year. I closed my book and ran after the children who were carrying the splashing bucket of turtles towards the sea. “What now?” I thought, “A feast of boiled baby turtles on the beach?” but when I arrived to where the children had placed the bucket, I saw that the turtles were still living and one by one, the excited children were lifting them out of the bucket and placing them in a row on the beach facing the rippling frothy surf coming towards them.
As each of the turtles motored towards the deep sea in the shallow surf they were followed by the screaming cheers of the children behind them until the last baby turtle had been freed into the sea and the commotion of the children had stopped. The afternoon’s events with the single turtle that I had saved seemed to have been forgotten among the children but I had not forgotten and with a creeping feeling of alarm I went to ask Rosa’s mother who was watching the last turtles swim away, why they had freed all the turtles at night and not during the day? “Well”, she answered patiently in Spanish, “If you free them during the day in the sunshine, the chances are less than a hundred to one that they will survive because the birds and fish can see them and prey on them and the chances of survival diminish the less turtles you free at once. If you only free one turtle by itself during the daytime into the sea, the chances are practically zero that it will survive.”
In a stunned silence I stood next to her as I frowned out towards the night sea above which the moon was rising. Somehow I couldn’t feel the spirit of the children’s laughter as they headed back home towards the kitchen and their supper.
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© Gavin John Howell
December 2011
Published April 2015
Glory to Jesus Christ, King of Kings, Lord of Heaven and Earth. God Almighty. One with the Father.
Glory to Jesus Christ, King of Kings, Lord of Heaven and Earth. God Almighty. One with the Father.
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