Grenada - Leatherbacks

Last night Inga (a former cruiser who now lives in Grenada and coordinates tours for cruisers) organized a group to go up to Levera Beach to see the Leatherback turtles lay their eggs. Once again Cutty was our driver, and eight of us wound our way up the twisty roads to Levera Beach which is the northernmost beach on the island. The turtles nest at night, so it was dark during the drive and it gave us an interesting perspective on local nightlife, since we are usually back on board the boat by sunset and rarely go out late at night. Driving through Grenville (where we were on Friday's tour) it looked like a street fair or something -- everyone was out in the streets, people were roasting corn and chicken in barrel ovens and of course the calypso music was blaring from massive speakers. Cutty said they weren't celebrating anything special; this is just a typical Saturday night.

We arrived at Levera Beach around 9 pm and met Karl, a researcher from Ocean Spirits which is a non-profit research group that monitors the turtles during their nesting season from April to July. We were lucky; a female turtle was already up on the beach and beginning to dig her nest. Leatherbacks are the largest species of sea turtle; this one was a little over four feet long but they've been recorded at up to nine feet long. She was digging in the sand with her back flippers and as we watched she began to lay her eggs. Throughout the nesting season the same female will come up to the beach on several different occasions, laying up to 150 eggs each time. The eggs incubate for more than two months before hatching. The hatchlings are tiny -- only about 3 inches long -- and as they make their way to the ocean, many are gobbled up by sea birds and crabs. By patrolling Levera Beach during nesting season, volunteers from Ocean Spirit keep the predators at a distance allowing more hatchlings to make it to the open ocean. We saw several of the little ones making their way to the water. They are very sensitive to light and would get confused occasionally, doing donuts in the sand while trying to figure out which way to go. We had to be really careful where we stepped -- the moon hadn't risen yet and the beach was pitch black so we had to use flashlights with red filters to find our way around.

Due to illegal hunting and egg poaching worldwide, leatherback turtles are critically endangered. But this season Ocean Spirits recorded more nests (900 in all) than the previous two years combined, so that is encouraging. Tonight we saw three females nesting even though it is pretty late in the season. The whole experience was really cool. Due to the turtles' sensitivity to light, we weren't able to take any flash photos but Kevin brought along the videocamera which has "night vision" mode. It looks a little creepy like the Blair Witch Project but you are able to see the turtles pretty clearly. We'll try to edit and convert the videos and get them posted soon.