Florida Day 11

I barely slept last night. I slept even worse than I had the previous night. It was hot and there was no breeze. No breeze not only meant sweating profusely, it meant there was nothing to keep the bugs away so, in the heat, I needed to slip into my sleep sack which only made me sweat more. It is now 4:30 and even though I am tired, I can’t sleep. I am baking in my hammock.

Unable to sleep, I walked down to the beach and sat in a lounge chair. It was breezier but not breezy enough to keep the bugs away. So I gave up and headed to the car. When I got there, G3 had already taken shelter. The bugs had feasted on him all night as well and he couldn’t sleep either. The car was hot, but bug free and I finally fell asleep. I was so tired that I fell into a deep sleep and slept later than I usually do on the road. Since I am the one who usually wakes everyone up, we got a late start to our day. But it’s okay because we have a rather light itinerary today.

We first learned about the turtle hospital in Marathon from my cousin who recommended we stop in for a tour while we were in The Keys. Kati loves turtles, so it was one of the things she was most looking forward to on this trip. After we broke camp, which just entailed taking our hammocks down, we went straight to the hospital.

There are five different species of sea turtles that live in The Keys: Green, Kemp Ridley, Hawkbill, Loggerhead, and Leatherback. The kemp ridley is Kati’s spirit animal since they love to nap. They are the smallest of the sea turtles, growing only about two feet long and weighing up to 100 pounds. Since they nap so much on the sandy muddy bottom of the sea, they are more yellow than green to blend in with their environment. They can, impressively, hold their breath for up to seven hours. The breed is unique because all pregnant females will arrive on the same day, en masse (some 40,000 of them) on the same beach to lay their eggs. This makes them extremely vulnerable to predators and poaching.

In contrast, the leatherbacks are the largest sea turtles, growing up to six and a half feet and weighing 2000 pounds. To sustain themselves, they need to eat 80 percent of their body weight every day. That is a great deal of jellyfish. They can dive deeper than any other turtle, so deep that if their shells were made of keratin, like every other turtle, their shells would crack from the pressure. Instead, their shells are made of cartilage, making them the only soft shell turtles in the sea.

Green turtles eat mostly a vegetation diet. In fact, they eat so many greens—seagrass and algae—it turns their insides green—hence their name. Before the passage of the Endangered Species Act in 1973, these turtles were caught, slaughtered, canned, and sold as food for people. The Endangered Species Act put an end to this—just one example of why this act is so vitally important and why it’s egregious that Trump gutted it. These turtles can grow to be four feet long and weigh as much as 500 pounds.

Unlike green turtles, loggerheads are carnivores and they predominantly eat hard shelled invertebrates, like conches. Their jaws are powerful enough to bite through shells. In fact, their jaws can do as much damage as the jaw of a black bear. If they get near one of your fingers, they will sever it. Who knew turtles could be so dangerous?  As for size, they can grow to be three and a half feet long  and weigh between 250 and 450 pounds.

Finally, the hawkbill turtle has the prettiest shell. The term “tortoise shell pattern” is erroneous because the pattern coms from the hawkbill turtle, not a tortoise. These turtles were once hunted for their shells which were turned into jewelry and other decorations. Once again, you can see the importance of the Endangered Species Act, since killing these turtles is now illegal. They eat sponges (which are toxic to humans) crabs, and shrimp. They are relatively small compared to other breeds, growing only two or three feet and weigh only 150 pounds.

All turtles, regardless of species, have a tiny brain. They rely on instinct for survival, not critical thinking skills. This is one of the reasons human activity can be so dangerous for them. Boat strikes regularly kill and injure turtles. It doesn’t matter how strong their shells are, motorboat blades are stronger. Turtles also become tangled in fishing gear or discarded anchors. Even those of us who may never go out on the water or even live near water make the oceans less safe for turtles when we are careless with garbage, especially plastic. Turtles eat whatever looks like food which is how they come to eat plastic—it can resemble a jellyfish. Eating garbage that ends up in the water not only blocks their digestive tracts, it can compromise their immune systems.

Turtles come to be patients in the hospital for several reasons. The FP virus is not uncommon. It causes tumors to grow on the soft tissue—both inside and out—of turtles. The tumors are not cancerous, so if they grow on the outside of a turtle, they are completely operable, and after recovering from surgery, most of the turtles can be returned to the ocean. Tumors inside are not operable because there is no safe way to operate through the shell. One of the residents of the hospital had tumors removed, but they had grown over his eyes. As a result, he lost one eye and can only see shadows in the other.  He lives at the hospital because his vision is too poor to release him.

Boat strikes not only kill turtles, they can also cause paralysis or positive buoyancy disorder. If a turtle gets hit too hard and gets knocked around their body releases gas that gets trapped under their shell. With no safe way to release the gas, the shell bubbles up. The gas stays trapped, making it impossible for the turtle to dive. Being trapped at the surface means the turtle is more likely to be picked off by a predator. They are also prone to starvation because every time they try to dive for food, they float back up to the surface. Turtles with this condition cannot be released back into the wild.

Once a turtle has been admitted as a patient, they need to meet three criteria to be released: 1) they must have three working flippers, 2) one working eye, 3) and they must pass a swim test. Unfortunately, there isn’t space in the hospital for every turtle who can’t go back to the ocean. Luckily, zoos and aquariums around the country are happy to take them in and give them homes.

On the tour, we had the opportunity to see the turtle patients. Some had the FP tumors. Some were recovering from surgery. One was paralyzed, another lost a flipper after getting entangled. We saw them swimming in their tanks. The large one connects to the ocean and fish enter and leave at will. We couldn’t touch the turtles, but we were able to feed them a snack of romaine lettuce.

When the tour ended, we drove to Key Largo where we will be camping for the night  at John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park. By the time we got the tent up, Kati was miserable. She was rapidly melting. The feel like temperature was 102 degrees, the hottest it’s been since we got to Florida. G3 has been wanting to see Spider-Man, and since a movie theater has air conditioning, we decided to go the movies because Kati was not handling the heat well. Surprisingly, tickets were much cheaper than they are back home.  The movie was good. Since Endgame, Marvel has put out several not so good movies. This was not one of them. Dad would have liked the movie. Dad always enjoyed the superhero movies. G3 gets that from him.

Speaking of Dad, as many of you know, I grew up spending summers on Long Island. My love of the beach and the water started at a young age. When I was little and we first started going out to Mattituck, Dad bought one of those big two-man blow-up row boats. That first summer, I was five and my brother was two. The boat was big enough for one adult and two kids. Dad never sat in the boat and no one ever used the oars. Dad would push mom in the boat for hours. Since my brother was a toddler, he would often fall asleep on her lap. I, always the restless child, would sit for a bit until I got bored and then I would jump into the the water and swim along side Dad for awhile until I wanted to ride again. In and out, all day, until my mom would get frustrated with me. Dad must have clocked a hundred miles or more every summer and nothing deterred him, not even the jellyfish who repeatedly stung him. Mom enjoyed floating over the bay and Dad enjoyed making her happy. So, what does this story have to do with Florida? My parents named their blow-up boat “The African Queen.” The name meant nothing to me. At some point, I learned that the name was a reference to a movie, but I never saw it and I had little interest in what the plot might have been. When I hear the name African Queen—even as an adult—the very clear picture in my memory is Dad taking Mom for a ride.

However, when I started to plan this trip, my cousin mentioned that the African Queen—the boat from the movie—is docked in Key Largo. (I don’t know if she knew the story about my parents.) Of course I had to go see it because in an odd sort of way it reminds me of Dad. G3 couldn’t understand why and ridiculed me mercilessly: “So you are sentimental about a boat from a movie you’ve never seen because your father used the same name for a rubber boat? That doesn’t make any sense.” And maybe it doesn’t to anyone but me—but really that’s all that matters, what I think. So, after Spider-Man, we stopped by the dock to see the boat. G3 was flabbergasted. He had expected a nice boat, more like a ship, “Not a fancy piece of driftwood with a motor.” But again, it wasn’t about the boat—not really—just a happy childhood memory.

Back at the campground, we planned to go swimming until we saw the beach. No waves, shallow, too much sargassum seaweed, and signs warning to watch out for crocodiles. The swim lost its appeal. I was disappointed, but that’s life. Also disappointing is the fact that we start heading home tomorrow. I can’t complain. We had a full, busy, and exciting summer and we have three adorable cats waiting at home for us. But getting back home means figuring out where to go from here and finding a job. If look up at the sky right now and make a wish on a star, will I finally get my dream job?

For dinner, we went to C&C Wood Fire Eats and had a cheese pizza. It was good. Not great, but very good.

G3 is finally using the tent we got him in Walmart. There is nowhere to hang a hammock and even if there was, I think he had enough of the bugs.