She drifted 500 yards offshore in the tropical warm eastern Pacific ocean off Ostional Beach. Only 15 the olive ridley sea turtle was in a small land that Christopher Columbus had discovered and named "Costa Rica", the "rich coast" five centuries earlier.
The nearly daily afternoon tropical rains of December had stopped as the marine turtle waited in anticipation. The moon was in its final quarter and, though she did not know why, it was having an effect on her.
As it has done for unimaginable years, the moon was passing through its timeless phases. Though she could not know it, it was drawing this olive ridley turtle ashore. She was not alone. At first, a few yards away, another Pacific sea turtle joined her, then a third, followed by a dozen, then hundreds, thousands, now tens of thousands of marine sea turtles. For more than one hundred million years it had been thus: vast migrations of ancient creatures, culminating when the moon was in this phase.
There is something mysterious about life. A few months earlier, this marine turtle and the multitude of sea turtles now alongside her were scattered across the Pacific Ocean, some more than 2500 miles away.
Although there was plenty of food far out in the Pacific, something had begun to stir inside her. Hundreds of thousands like her felt the same inexorable compulsion to return to Ostional Beach. They, and she, were all going back to where they had hatched.
Now, months later, she waited in the soft moonlight just a few hundred meters from her destination. She was ready. Over the thousands of miles she had swum, she had come across several different male olive ridley sea turtles in the clear tropical waters and bred with them in the deep ocean. Like her, they too were being affected by something unseen, a primeval force. It was something so compelling that her species had been going back to Ostional Beach since before the first dinosaur.
In the tropical night this olive ridley sea turtle was waiting. She had somehow found to the very beach where she had hatched in 1995. We do not know how an olive ridley sea turtle finds the exact beach where it started life. There are only a few nesting beaches on earth and they are not very big. Indeed Ostional Beach is only a few hundred meters in length. Now part of Costa Rica's Ostional National Wildlife Refuge, it is almost certainly the most important olive ridley marine turtle nesting site on the planet. Incredibly, in 1995, the year this turtle hatched, perhaps as many as half a million female olive pacific sea turtles had nested here in huge waves. These massive invasions are called "arribadas."
Unfortunately, our sea turtle's mother will not join her to nest at Ostional this year even though for the last two decades, she had been part of massive Costa Rica arribadas several times every year. Not long ago, she drowned in an illegal shrimping net on her way back to the ancient nesting grounds. It was a needless waste since it could have been avoided by the simple use of an internationally required, but typically ignored, law requiring a turtle escape device. Thousands more were destroyed in what is politely called "incidental catch" by long line fishermen who refuse to use larger hooks that would prevent tragedy to this magnificent and ancient creature. And, no one knows how many thousands died unnecessarily by eating carelessly discarded plastic bags. And, of course, there has been the ceaseless pillaging of nests: millions of eggs from just a few small, precious beaches.
But, neither our turtle nor the tens of thousands alongside her know none of this. As they gather, they are now so many that it seems one could almost walk on their backs for a mile or more. They don't realize they were on earth long before there was a Tyrannosaurus Rex or that when they lay their eggs on this tiny wildlife refuge, men will lawfully raid their nests and take one million eggs in return for protecting the rest of the clutches and preserving the species. They only know this: Ostional is their beach.
Then, though no one knows why, it happens. As quietly as they first appeared, as silently as they gathered, their patience has been rewarded and they begin to come ashore. A single olive ridley turtle followed by a second. Then there are hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands---even more than that---each intent on one task: bringing new life. All night they come. And all day, day after day. It is a wonder of magnificent Costa Rica and as timeless as the phases of the moon. It is the spectacular display of life called Arribada.
About the Author:
The author writes about lovely Costa Rica in his popular website Costa Rica Vacations. Visit here to learn more about increasingly important Costa Rica ecotourism
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