Turtle Rescue

In September, Elspeth, Becky, Yu and I met up for an afternoon of sea turtle saving in Hamamatsu. Some of you might remember last year's attempt (when it rained and we wandered around the beach, terrified that we were stepping on baby turtles). This year we were prepared. Yu made reservations and the weather was perfect. Before turtle saving we stopped for some FANTASTIC and cheap Italian food at a little restaurant in the middle of some rice fields. When we were full of pasta and cheesecake, we headed out to the beach.



Oops, that was the first beach we tried....we got directions and hopped back in the car to find the right beach...

Turtle: 'Thanks little crab, for showing me the way to the ocean.'
Crab: 'No problem little turtle. Happy swimming.'
Birds: 'ZZZZzzz.'



Aaaahhh..this must be the right beach...there were a ton of kids and their parents.

We listened to the organizer talk for-ev-er about turtles, the beach, how they swim and of course, the toys and maps you could buy afterwards. Here are Elspeth, Yu and Becky showing you how baby sea turtles dig themselves out of the nest. Look at Becky's face. You can tell she wasn't impressed at me for making her do this!



Finally we all stood along a rope and waited for our turtles...The guy with the microphone said there weren't babies today and that many and we might need to share (boo) but a minute later some helpers arrived with buckets of baby turtles (the nests are protected and the babies have to dig themselves out in order to develop their muscles).


We resisted pushing all of the little kids out of the way and waited patiently for our turtles (I mean, this wasn't Harry Potter...). They were SO cute! And feisty!


Here's my little guy. His name was Kirby. Elspeth's was Todd. I can't remember Becky's...Isabella...hmmm...and Yu's was Kumiko. The sea turtle team.



Good luck Kirby! I hope you make it across the ocean (and don't get eaten by any big sea creatures)!


On the signal, we released our little turtles and watched them scurry out towards the ocean. One big wave later and all 4 of our turtles were off and swimming!


Here's some video of our turtles. Keep an eye out for when Elspeth's Todd totally crashes into Kirby and walks all over him in his rush to get to the water. Mean Todd...