Chapter Twenty-Three #3
“If you want to stay with the guys, I can take Dude home with me. I’m only here to help them with the gear. My mom and I did the watch last night and I’m exhausted,” Taylor said. “You can pick him up later or tomorrow or whenever.”
Simon and I exchanged a look. Simon’s eyebrows were raised and he said, “I’ve never seen a turtle hatch, have you?”
“No.” I shook my head. “But I’d love to if it’s no imposition.”
“Imposition?” Roland scoffed. “We’re going to put you to work.”
“I’m in.” I turned to Simon. “You?”
“Absolutely.” He jogged over to our stuff and scooped it up, giving Taylor Dude’s Frisbee.
“Be a good boy.” I kissed Dude’s big, blocky head and he trotted off with Taylor as she hyped him up about going to her house.
“He’s really just leaving me,” I said.
“In all fairness, she did say ‘car ride.’ ” Simon handed me our blanket while he carried the tote bag as we strode toward the area where Roland and Zach were setting up to wait.
“Yeah, I’ll always lose to a ride in the car.”
Under Roland’s guidance we set up amber lights so we could see the nest in the coming darkness.
He explained that the newly hatched turtles were drawn to the white of the waves on the beach or the moon’s reflection on the water, which was why they used amber lights so as not to send the hatchlings in the wrong direction.
Simon was given a plastic shovel to flatten the sand from the nest all the way to the water so the baby turtles had fewer impediments on their journey. Zach took the other shovel and the two of them set to work.
Roland removed the net that had been placed over the nest. “To keep predators out.”
Using the camera on my phone, I shot B-roll of the sign, indicating that the spot was a turtle nest. I framed Simon behind the sign.
He was small and blurry, as I intended, but I could still see his muscles bunch as he and Zach worked, and I wanted to have footage of him.
I opted not to examine the need too closely.
“Do you think they’ll hatch tonight?” I asked Roland.
He shrugged. “Nature isn’t on the clock. They’re due, but it might be tomorrow night or the night after that.”
“Is it always at night?”
Roland unfolded the chair he’d brought with him and plopped into it. “Usually. The mama comes ashore at night and the babies are born at night. I read it’s an instinctual thing because there are less predators at night, also it’s cooler and she has to do a lot of digging.”
I spread our blanket beside Roland’s chair and noted that the sun was beginning to dip and would set soon. I glanced at the nest area, hoping tonight would be the night.
“So, are you two a thing?” Roland bit into the apple he’d taken out of his cooler and pushed his well-worn baseball cap back on his head.
“Are you asking about the status of my personal life?” I stalled.
“Not me.” He shook his head. “I mind my own business.”
“Uh-huh, I noticed that about you.” My voice dripped sarcasm and Roland wheezed out a laugh.
“An old man has to have hobbies,” he defended himself. “Mine is gossip. So, are you?”
I met his curious gaze and shrugged. “I can give you a solid maybe.”
“Pfft.” He shook his head. “If that man doesn’t put a lock on you, he’s an idiot.”
I was flattered but wanted to defend Simon when we inevitably went our separate ways. “It’s complicated.”
“No, it isn’t.” Roland gestured to Simon, who was standing at the water’s edge, talking to Zach. “Either you want him in your life or you don’t.”
“I barely know him,” I protested.
Roland pointed his half-eaten apple at me. “That clinch in the water we came upon was not the I-barely-know-you kind.”
My face immediately heated up. “Okay, fine, there is an attraction but I can’t…I’m not…” I lost my words. Not a common occurrence for me, but I just didn’t know how to explain to this older gentleman, of whom I’d become very fond, that I was not a long-term-relationship prospect.
“Is this because you couldn’t get pregnant with your ex?” he asked.
I sucked in a shocked breath as if he’d just pulled a gun on me. “How do you know about that?”
“Billy blabbed. He was worried about you.” Roland took another bite of his apple.
I nodded. That sounded like Pops. “Does everybody in Cape Split know?” I asked.
Roland shifted in his chair. “Not everyone.”
I turned and stared at the waves. I didn’t know how I felt about this.
Strangers knew the most vulnerable part of me.
I expected to feel violated, instead, I felt oddly relieved.
My new neighbors, who were becoming my friends, already knew my most painful personal struggle.
So the endless “Don’t you want to get married and have kids?
” question that had started as soon as I turned twenty-five and had dogged me ever since wouldn’t be happening here. Phew.
“Any sign of the turtle boil?” Zach asked as he and Simon joined us near the nest.
“Boil?” I asked.
“They call it that because it looks like the sand is bubbling when the babies start popping out,” Roland explained, much to my relief. He pointed to the taped-off area. “But the sand is definitely indented. I think it’ll be soon.”
Simon and I exchanged an excited look. He grabbed our tote bag and sat down on the blanket beside me. He handed me a paper-wrapped sandwich. “We should fortify.”
I realized I was starving. I unwrapped the paper and found a club sandwich inside. I bit into it as if I hadn’t eaten in a week. Simon handed me a can of iced tea while Zach set up his chair next to his father’s and they unpacked their cooler.
The four of us ate in companionable silence as the breeze picked up, signaling that the tide was coming in. Zach pointed to the waterline that was getting closer. “This is good. The turtles won’t have as far to go if they hatch at high tide.”
As the sun disappeared behind the horizon and the sky shifted from golden to purple to completely dark, Zach and Roland entertained us with stories about Pops and Gramps. They had volunteered with the turtle rescue outfit as well.
Roland told us about the time an unfortunate ATV rider came cruising down the beach while Gramps was on watch.
“It must have been about ten years ago.” Roland scratched his chin.
“Me, my wife, Jeanie, Billy, and Bobby were all on duty. ATV guy came cruising through and we warned him away but he took it as a personal challenge.” He paused to shake his head.
“The next thing I knew Bobby took the dope off his ride with a flying tackle and Pops hopped on and drove the ATV right to the police station. The driver had to explain how he’d had his ass handed to him by a couple of old men and then had to do community service. ”
“Sounds like they were quite the dynamic duo,” Simon said.
“They were good men.” Zach held up his soda and we all clinked cans. I took a long sip, hoping to ease the sudden knot in my throat.
“Um, Roland, I think something’s happening.” Simon gestured to the sand. Sure enough, it was shifting and moving, looking just as Zach had described, like it was starting to boil.
“Oh, it’s happening!” Roland hopped up from his seat. “Okay, we have to make sure they go in the right direction and we need to take count.”
The amber lights that we’d set up on stands illuminated the depression and I crawled closer with my phone to film the moment. Simon was beside me while Zach and Roland moved to each side of the nest, ready to redirect any hatchlings that went the wrong way.
“This is amazing,” I whispered to Simon. I turned and his face was just inches from mine and he looked as excited as I felt. I reached out and grabbed his hand just because I had to touch him. He squeezed my fingers in return and we both turned back to the nest.
The sand was churning and moving more swiftly now.
A little button of a head popped out of the sand and I felt my heart flutter in my chest from the sheer wonder of it.
Baby sea turtles! I checked to make certain I was filming and then turned back to the nest. A second head popped out of the sand and then a third.
A little flipper appeared and I watched as the first baby turtle covered in sand pushed out of the nest and began to flail in the churning dirt, trying to find his path.
“Come on, little one,” Roland coaxed. I remembered that he was the critter whisperer and I wondered if he could even talk the baby turtles into doing what he wanted.
More turtles appeared, popping up out of the sand. “There are so many,” I cried.
“A mama turtle lays about one hundred eggs and they all hatch at the same time, give or take,” Zach said.
“One hundred?” I was amazed and awed.
Our first hatchling had found the flattened path to the sea and he was using his front and back flippers to scurry his way toward the ocean. There was a determination in him that made me want to clap and cheer as if he were competing in the Olympics.
Watching him, I was overwhelmed with a sudden feeling of protectiveness. I wanted to scoop him up, he’d barely fill my palm, and protect him from the deep, dark ocean in front of him, which seemed entirely too big and scary for a little fella who was the size of a coaster.
“What happens to them in the ocean?” I asked. More and more babies were following the first one as the nest became a churning mass of itty-bitty turtles all climbing out of the sand.
“They’ll go into a swim frenzy,” Roland said. “It’ll last for a day or two to get away from the shore and predators. They’ll reach the ocean currents, which will take them deeper into the ocean to places like the Sargasso Sea, where they’ll live in relative safety during their juvenile years.”
I filmed the line of turtles marching to the sea, staying off to the side as I followed them. Zach was stationed by the middle of the path and he was counting the babies with a pad and pencil, making hash marks as each one passed him.