The Determined Loggerhead Female by Saskia Renshoff

Due to my sea turtle work, I have been lucky to be part of some amazing sea turtle events. I've witnessed little turtle babies coming out of the sand, seen mother turtles crawling on the beach and many more gorgeous turtle experiences can be added to this list. There is one turtle encounter that I'll never forget. Let me take you away from Bonaire and take you to the souvlakis in Greece. I was in Greece for six weeks in the summer of 2000 participating in a loggerhead project. People always look kind of surprised when they hear about sea turtles in Greece. Actually, the Greek Island Zakynthos hosts the largest breeding loggerhead population in the Mediterranean!

It was an early evening and the sun had almost disappeared in the sea. That evening another volunteer and I were sitting on the beach. The nesting season was already coming to an end and neither of us expected any nesting to happen, especially considering the presence of a bar on the beach with awful loud music. We were a little bit sleepy, but a black shadow in the water all of sudden struck my eye. I looked and a saw this head coming out of the water. It was a female loggerhead. The volunteer and I just freezed. She was actually coming ashore right in front of us. She crawled straight in my direction. My heart started to beat like an army of African natives playing the drums. For a moment I thought she was actually going to crawl over me. It's not a nice idea to have a weight like that on top of you, but I didn't want to move either, cause I was afraid of scaring her. Fortunately she turned off and decided to walk 'just' over my left leg. I was thrilled. She crawled of my leg and scraped my back for a couple of minutes with her front flippers. And this was the moment I will never forget. Her head was only 50 cm. away from mine and I looked straight in that big black eye.

She continued her work. She tried to dig a bodypit and an eggchamber. She was unsuccessful however, since she was missing her right rear flipper. We named her 'Stumpy'. I had such mixed feelings. I was really admiring this female. Trying so hard to dig an eggchamber, with that loud music going on. The combination of that dance music and this ancient reptile, which roamed in our oceans for millions of years, was heart breaking. Ever since that experience, my admiration for female sea turtles increased enormously.

Let's go back to Bonaire now, where we also have a famous loggerhead, named Forest. We witnessed this lady while she was nesting on Klein Bonaire in 1998. The party boat, with loud music and lights, was coming near that night and Forest decided to return to the sea without laying her eggs. What will happen if a turtle gets disturbed while making the nest? She will most likely try again later that night. If she is not able to lay her eggs that same night, she will come back the next night. It is even believed that if a turtle is really not able to lay her eggs, she will dump them in the sea. Females are known to drop some eggs when they are under a lot of stress. I would certainly get stressed, if all of a sudden a light is shining in my face and dance beats are penetrating my ears while I am trying to accomplish such a difficult task!

I also witnessed a turtle, although I do not know what kind it was, laying eggs on a beach in West Palm Beach Florida around 1988. My ex and I were walking on the beach and happended across her. It was for most a once in a lifetime experience.