Day 61: A Trip to the Hospital

Today’s morning activity was to the Turtle Hospital, which apparently is the only one in the world. The turtle rehabilitation program started when the owner was asked why he didn’t have turtles in his tropical hotel pools (it was the early 90s, when the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were super popular). The only legal way one can keep turtles was for rehabilitation, so that’s what he did.

There were 29 turtles (25 Loggerhead, 3 Green, and one Kemp’s Ridley) there during our visit, 20 of which are long term turtles. The long-term turtles are there because of boat strikes that caused air in their lungs to get knocked into other parts of their body. That air means they can’t avoid floating. At the hospital, they put weights on their shells, but the shells grow like nails so the weights fall off every ~6 months, making the turtles nonviable in the wild. They let us feed these “locals”, which was really fun.

We also met two turtles that came in with tumors. Apparently it is very common for Green turtles to get this disease, because they eat lots of seagrass, which absorbs pollutants in the water. To be released, a turtle needs at least three good flippers and one eye, so the ones we saw will eventually be released.

There was one “ghost” or Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle, which is light in color to blend in with the sand. It only comes up to breathe every five hours, and we were lucky enough to be there for one of those breaths, so we got to see it close up. Our guide told us to buy lotto tickets, with our luck that day.

The highlight for the boys was seeing the little one-year-old turtles. They have a “leg up” program where they get to keep two baby turtles until they grow to 12″ shell size (about age 2) where they will then be released. At this size, many of the early challenges have passed, and they are more likely to survive into adulthood. In general, only 1 in 1,000 turtles make it to adulthood.

After the Turtle Hospital was with a trip to the grocery store and gas station. This grocery store experience was like going with two toddlers; it was ridiculous. Fortunately, it’s behind us now, so we have a reference point again of what store behavior not to have.

A highlight of the day was watching Nicholas on his conference calls. The teacher was having some connectivity issues, and Nicholas advantage of the open mic and got his classmates giggling. He also had some bonus social time in the form of a lunchtime call with some classmates and said he really enjoyed that.

I had an afternoon date with Nicholas while Cooper finished up his call with his buddy Ben. We spent the time digging in the sand instead of playing in the water, due to the crazy winds again. We built footrests and decorated them with shells, corals, and rocks.