Turtle Eggs by Moonlight
By Lauren Kramer
There’s a soft snorting sound coming from the sand five feet from where I’m sitting on a Grenada beach, well into the darkness of a May night. The sky is starrier than I’ve seen in years and as my eyes gradually acclimate to the darkness I can just make out the movement of flippers gently thudding on the sand.
I’m in the domain of the critically endangered leatherback turtle in nesting season, watching a massive creature prepare a nest three feet into the moist sand. With her back to the hole she deftly uses her hind flippers to excavate, shaking each one fastidiously before inserting it deeper into the hole lest she carry excess sand into the egg chamber she’s preparing.
Listen to me: if it should ever come your way, jump at the opportunity to travel the winding, stomach-lurching roads that will, two hours later, lead you to Levera Beach on Grenada’s northernmost point. This is the only place in the country where you can watch a leatherback turtle deposit a basketful of eggs into the sand, and trust me on this: the sight will fill you with awe, leave you with deep respect for the turtle and awaken inside you a commitment to its preservation against odds that seem insurmountable.
On this dark night I’m accompanied by Dora Cornwall,
a tour coordinator with Ocean Spirits, a non-profit organization that aims to protect the leatherback turtle
and its second largest Caribbean nesting site on this
remote Grenada beach. In the 20th century
leatherbacks declined in number by 20 percent – with man their greatest predator. It doesn’t help that although the turtles are prolific egg-layers the odds of a hatchling’s survival are incredibly slim. The night before nine turtles clambered up the shore, laying in excess of 1,000 eggs. Of those, only one hatchling is likely to reach adulthood.
This mother turtle must be aware on some level of the low survival rate, for her nest is meticulously crafted and she stops only when she is certain that the moist crevice is free of roots, shells or any other debris that might harm her hatchlings. Perching on the edge she starts to lay eggs, depositing up to five simultaneously and dropping them with a soft plod into the chamber. “She is deep in concentration and her hormone levels are at their highest right now,” whispers Cornwall. “If you’d like to touch her, now is the time.”
I extend my hand to her sandy shell, which feels firm, warm and exquisitely smooth. Marked with seven ridges that help her to swim more efficiently through the water, it shines in the moonlight. Her flippers are rough to the touch, like the wrinkled skin of an elephant’s trunk, and I’m filled with wonder at this amazing creature who, in the coming months, will swim half way around the world and plunge to depths of up to 3,900 feet.
In no more than 15 minutes there are 123 eggs in the nest and after a flipper-full of sand hits my face, I retreat to watch the turtle cover her nest and camouflage the hole. This is all she can do to protect her hatchlings, for she will not see them again, and no time or effort is spared for this process.
Our special red flashlights are off now and the dark night envelops us and the turtle. In a dance-like motion she begins compacting the sand around her hole, using her tail and all four flippers. Only when there is no trace of the hole or the eggs she has secretly laid does she begin a slow, clumsy walk back to the ocean. Soundlessly she enters the surf and as the waves splash the sand from her shell she is quickly swallowed by the water and on her way.
What she doesn’t know is that as carefully as she constructed her nest, poachers continue to emerge in the daylight, prodding the sand with long thin sticks for evidence of the hole. If they are not spotted and reported to the police by one of the fishermen on Levera Beach, they can easily ruin the night’s labours by finding the newly formed nests, unearthing their contents and selling the eggs on the black market long before the hatchlings even emerge. 
Ocean Spirits is trying to prevent that from happening, and according to Cornwall poaching has been reduced by 70 percent since the organization started patrolling the beach at night and educating Grenadian school goers.
But the challenges are far from over. A wealthy Brit has shown a keen interest in constructing a hotel on the verge of Levera Beach and if he gets his way the turtles may find their nesting grounds encroached by couples walking in the moonlight, their silence disturbed by the jingles of hotel music and their orientation confused by the bright lights that such a development will inevitably bring.
For this evening, though, their 700-meter stretch of
conch-strewn sand is enveloped in the gentle black of night and peaceful but for the sound of the crashing surf. Across the bay a lone light shines from Sugarloaf Island, an uninhabited isle that rises like a perfect triangle from the ocean. And buried a few feet beneath the sand’s surface, thousands of embryonic turtles are nestled into a sealed cocoon, awaiting just the right moment when they will hatch from their eggs, cooperatively dig their way to the surface and begin their epic ocean journey.
If You Go:
