CCXXIII – Biology 101a

Saturday March 28th, 2015

We continue to ride out the North winds and swells from the cold front from Red Shanks just off the main harbours of Exuma and Stocking Island. The front passed last evening with a noticeable change in temperature and the wind picked up a little energy as well. Its a little choppy but quite safe and comfortable.

Dave Daub of Bliss II had mentioned last week that we had to visit a bay on Crab Cay and feed the turtles. He told us that all you had to do was splash your hand in the water and they will come to the dinghy. He further said that you would be able to pet the critters. “You need to get a box of squid” he said. I’m pretty sure nobody has ever said that particular sentence to me ever. Where does one get a box of squid.

squidApparently squid equals calamari and it is available in the Exuma Market in the squid section of frozen food. They are not the giant variety that we read about as children or as we envisage swallowing FRACAS whole at night. Just little sea creatures that turtles apparently love.

Notwithstanding the overabundance and reliance on electronics, I sent Dave a text and received the way points for the prime turtle location. Using my IPAD for navigation, the dinghies from DevOcean and Fracas navigated through the dangerous waters to get to the special place on Crab Cay. We dropped anchor at the X on the IPAD and after only a few seconds of splashing my hand the first turtle arrived. They obviously know where the squid live and anticipate being fed.

ML was squeamish about handling the squid. She didn’t mind at all petting the turtles head and shell. The turtle had a functioning mouth with some teeth I observed. They wanted the calamari and they didn’t much care if it was presented with a nice Riesling, a prosecco or a Greco di tufo. They just wanted to be fed. For the first while we only had one turtle…later when the squid was nearly gone two more turtles arrived. They were SOL and we were worried that they might take it out on the dinghies.

 

Finally ML agreed to fondle one of the offensive little critters and wiggled it to attract the turtle. In the video you can see that she made the poor thing sit and bark before sharing the calamari.

Green Sea turtles are endangered. They get caught in various fishing rigging and their nesting site beaches are disturbed/destroyed by human development. Notwithstanding that they come with their own bowl, they are also still taken illegally for food.

We did typical dinghy exploring on the way back to the boats. When we arrived someone was there waiting. We think it was Nikki the dolphin. You may have heard of her through Dave and Rita. She was circling DevOcean. Linda immediately jumped in and started swimming with her. Mary Lynn came back to the boat and got her snorkeling stuff and we went back to DevOcean. There was a short discussion with Marc about $50 U.S. to swim with the dolphin… ML jumped in and they swam together for a long time. Even after the humans got tired Nikki continued to circle  the boat. She was still there when we went over for dinner.

This was a down day, the wind was up it was cloudy. Days are what you make of them.

Here are a few pics of Nikki, one even shows ML’s flippers.I had to use pics from DevOcean as I forgot to carry a camera… Section 15, subsection 9, paragraph 4 of the Wayward Sailors Local 901 states: “Carry your friggin camera at all times.” JEEZUZ Tabernac

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.