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Watching Sea Turtles Go Home

Blog By Greg Hlavaty

My family visits Folly Beach each year in late May, partly to enjoy the lack of crowds, but this year on May 31, the parking lot was nearly full, and on the beach two yellow rope lines stretched into the shallows. It looked like a marked start to a triathlon, where racers would jockey and burst forth…to where…the Atlantic?

“Is there a race or something?” I asked my wife.

Turns out, yes.

But the racers would not be humans.

All morning the crowd grew and we guessed at the nature of the event. Staff in yellow shirts
milled about, and one of them mentioned a “sea turtle guy,” but we saw no signs.

My eight-year-old son, Rowan, and I waded chest-deep in the water, and just then a pod of dolphins surfaced not far from us. A nearby group of girls saw them too, and suddenly we were one group exclaiming over dolphins. The pod surfaced, dove, and reappeared even closer to us.

My heart quickened with excitement and a sense of fear, not of dolphins but of the unknown, something wild so near. How close would they get?

While we watched the dolphins, a South Carolina Aquarium van arrived on the beach. A white cross emblazoned on the van’s side held a red sea turtle, and that’s when we guessed the nature of the event: sea turtle release.

My wife took Rowan to join the crowd, but too late, they couldn’t get close enough to see. From up the beach, more people came, a crowd the size I’d never seen on Folly. They didn’t have the normal relaxed gait of beachcombers; they moved purposefully. Word had gotten out—Rehabilitated sea turtles!–and these people wanted to SEE.

As the staff carried turtles to the water, we went back to the waves, which grew larger as the tide came in. A long line of pelicans dove and skirted the water’s surface. Rowan had been upset he couldn’t see the turtles, but the dolphins and pelicans were gift enough.

That’s when we heard, of all things, more cheers. Louder this time. Much louder. Each time a rehabilitated turtle made it to the water, people took photos and hollered and clapped. Nothing new for sports or politics, I guess, but turtles?

I was moved, struck that so many people would take time out from their hurried lives to gather for something as simple as a sea turtle going to water. How wonderful that we can still rejoice. It’s true that we saw no turtles that morning, but maybe we witnessed something better: Hope.

And we saw it on Folly.

Author Bio: Greg Hlavaty is a freelance writer who specializes in nature study, outdoor adventures, and parenting. Visit his website at www.greghlavaty.com or find him on Twitter: @greg.hlavaty