She was just 15 as she drifted offshore in the warm, tropical eastern Pacific off the once remote beach known as Ostional in a land that, more than five centuries earlier, Christopher Columbus had named “Costa Rica”, the “rich coast.” She was an olive ridley sea turtle.
The moon was in its last quarter. The afternoon October rains had passed as she waited expectantly, unaware of the lunar effect bringing her near.
A dozen meters away, a second olive ridley sea turtle joined her, followed by a dozen, then hundreds, thousands, and soon tens of thousands, all waiting quietly. For billions of years the moon has passed its everlasting phases that affect the world’s tides-and today it was bringing her ashore this night, just as it had led her forebears to ancestral nesting beaches for more than one hundred million years.
There is something mysterious about life. A few months earlier, this marine turtle and the tens of thousands now alongside her were scattered across the Pacific Ocean, some more than 2500 miles away.
Though food was plentiful far out in the Pacific, something was stirring inside her. She and hundreds of thousands like her felt the same inexorable pull to return to Costa Rica. They had to go back to where they had arrived.
Now, as she waited in the soft moonlight, she was ready. Over the thousands of miles she had swum she had been bred by several different males in the clear tropical waters because, somehow, they, too, were being affected by something unseen, a force primeval. It was something so compelling that it had been bringing her race back to the same Costa Rica beach since the days of dinosaurs.
This sea turtle had hatched in 1995 at the very small Ostional Beach. Only a few hundred meters long it is now part of Costa Rica’s Ostional National Wildlife Refuge and maybe the most important olive ridley nesting site on the planet. Indeed, perhaps 500,000 females had nested in massive “arribadas” , wave-after-wave of turtles, the year she had hatched.
Unfortunately, our sea turtle’s mother will not join her to nest at Ostional this year even though for 23 years, 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 the first Tyrannosaurus Rex or that when they lay their eggs on this tiny wildlife refuge, men will legally 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.
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