BANNER DAY

Last full day in Mexico; turn the car in tomorrow morning and catch the 1:35 p.m. out of San Jose, just up the road from Cabo San Lucas. Lots of Sans down here. Can’t wait to go through customs again. I have 4 lbs. of Baja coffee in my suitcase. The say coffee is alright but I bet they open my suitcase for a look anyway. We get back into New Orleans a little after dark. Went for a boat ride this morning, saw pelicans and whales. The birds were working hard for food and the whales that we saw were taking it easy. Saw a small Gray Whale but they don’t breech really, just float along with a little fluke action and a blow now and then. The Humpbacks breech and tail slap, trying to dislodge parasites from their skin but not much of that either. They stayed with us for about an hour, surfacing every 6 or 7 minutes to blow, make a little head way, two of them. Still, any time you see whales up close it’s a banner day. 

OCTOPUS IF YOU'RE LUCKY

Cabo San Lucas, Baja, Mexico: We are back in the city with its push and shove, everybody grubbing for a dollar. I do like the energy-buzz in a healthy city but if it’s all strange and you don’t know nothin’ - it’s not much fun, yet. The drive from Todos Santos was early and easy. We agreed to a trade off, two nights stay at half price, free breakfast, discounts on car rental and whale watch if we listen to a sales pitch on time shares. We did that, it was interesting and educational but that’s fuel for another day. The whale watch is in the morning, plan on last minute shopping in the afternoon. I will turn the car in early the next day, fly out at noon, back in New Orleans at 7:00 p.m. Then we have about 10 days to observe Mardi Gras, a few days to reboot and take off for Florida. 

There were only 40 or so turtles last night but 50 or 60 people on hand to see them trek down the wet sand. My part in the ritual was to caution the good folks about waves that push little turtles back up the beach. Tide was coming in and every so often the surge made it farther and farther up the slope. “If that happens,” I said, “and your feed disappear under the foam, stop, freeze, don’t move your feet. We have to find the little buggers and put them back out front in the smooth sand.” We don’t want to have little turtles beat the odds of a cold nest and predators only to be stepped on by otherwise friendly spectators. There were lots of push-backs without any casualties. In the last minute of glow on the sand we gave 4 or 5 sluggish Ridleys a gentle boost, into the undertow. Closure; nice way to walk away. 

Closing up the beach, a last minute decision to celebrate our farewell took us to a restaurant, if you want to call it that, one that we drove by twice every day and never knew was there. Back on a deeply rutted dirt road, in a cluster of palm trees and brush was an outdoor kitchen set up in a clearing. Around that was a network of tables, light bulbs stretched on extension cords between trees and Christmas lights on the tree trunks. Past the dinner hour on Sunday night: 10 of us show up. The cook came out and explained, “All I have left is paella with sea food, salad and sangria. I’ve eaten Paella but not like this; shrimp, clams, fish and even a little octopus if you were lucky. Diced apples, oranges, pineapple in the sangria with ice cubes to keep it cold; It’s easy too feel special when you get dealt all aces. I’m looking forward to a shower tonight. For the last two weeks the shower consisted of 4 or 5 trickles through a shower head the size of a dinner plate. Not complaining, as a matter of fact I really enjoyed the slow motion hygiene. But a hot blast on head and shoulders will be a great welcome back to civilization. I don’t think I’m ready for television yet. 

KRISTOFFERSON KIND OF MORNING

I know lyrics and melody to so many songs there is no situation or  experience that a good hook line doesn’t pop into my mind when the feeling comes along. Right now it’s Kris Kristofferson’s ‘Sunday Morning Coming Down - “ . . . with songs that I’d been pickin’ - watched a kid, cussin’ at a can that he’d been kickin’.’” It is Sunday morning. I don’t have a hangover and I’m not alone on the sidewalks but there is sort of a Kristofferson feel to the new day. My great challenge this morning is fending off the Casita kittens, Mas & Menos. One is on my lap keeping warm while the other is pawing at my fingers moving on the keyboard. This life is really just one crisis after another. With 5 new volunteers at turtle camp there isn’t much for us to do there today. Maybe we’ll hang around the casita late, get everything back into suit cases and prep for an early morning departure tomorrow. I have an appointment in the morning at a resort hotel in Cabo San Lucas. They give us free breakfast buffet, pool time and reduced rate on a whale watching tour in exchange for a time-share sales pitch. Don’t hold your breath! I am obligated to listen and be nice but if it goes “High Pressure - Hard Sell” I might say, “How are you different than the guy on the street selling trinkets? You want me to spend money I don’t have on something I neither want nor need?” Now there are two cats in my lap. 

I have a new appreciation for nonprofit organizations. What comes home with compelling clarity is, if someone could make a profit at it, no need for the nonprofit. They differ largely by size and the ability to raise money. Las Playitas is small, a part time enterprise by an expat American who is raising her kids, being pulled in all directions. Volunteers get free lodging in a rickety old compound. That is to meet nonprofit requirements but we donate a large contribution to the cause to get around the rule; much more than it costs to keep us. I have no problem with that. I pay a lot of money so I can work for no pay. Not many conservatives volunteering here. 

Church bells are starting up. La Iglacia (Church) is up one block from Hotel California. It’s old school, very traditional, Latin American Catholic with pastel walls, stain glass windows, statuary and uncomfortable pews. Nobody falls asleep during the homily. Mass in Spanish with a simultaneous English translation for scripture readings. I like the bells best. 

“In a park I saw a daddy,

with a laughing little girl who he was swingin.

And I stopped beside a Sunday school,

and listened to the song that they were singin.

Then I headed back for home,

and somewhere far away a lonely bell was ringin’.

YOU CAN NEVER LEAVE

Todos Santos, Baja, Mexico. Day 13, or is it 14, it depends on whether you count the travel day. We decided to donate to a worthy cause, to work first and play when time allowed, to live in the moment and find joy there. To that extent, we count it a great success. By my best calculations we have factored into the nurture and release of nearly 500 Olive Ridley sea turtles that never would have launched without help. If nobody helps, none of them ever get wet. It takes many volunteers and many days and nights to get one baby Ridley into the sea but the system works and we have played a small part in that adventure. Tomorrow will be our last day with Tortugueros Las Playitas and we’ll disengage at noon. 

Todos Santos is a dusty little town where big brown dogs really do sleep in the middle of bumpy, dirt streets and feral chickens prowl the neighborhoods. The couple who run the bakery take their little boy to work with them. He rides his bicycle with training wheels in the court yard between buildings and the bread is as good as you can buy anywhere. Workmen work at concrete and digging while venders pitch their wares. Fish tacos are the best ever, anywhere and lemonade is made from local lemons. I like the place. We will spend a couple of days in the high priced tourist trap, Cabo San Lucas and we will find the joy there as well but coming to Todos Santos was not a mistake. When you've been retired for a while there isn't much difference between work and play, it's what keepsyou busy in the moment.

From the first day we knew about the big hotel, Hotel California. It’s a high dollar place with expensive shops and luxury suites. But it took a day to realize it is the real deal, brick and mortar hotel the song was written about. In the 1960’s it was a mental institution. Crazies, drug addicts, “We are all prisoners here, of our own device.” Their gift shop has a great coffee mug that I may not be able to resist. “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.” 

We had a send off for another volunteer last night at a nice restaurant. They serve thin toasted bread with pesto in lieu of chips and salsa. I arrived late, was handed chop sticks; the order already placed. Then came 6 big trays of sushi. I’d already eaten, passed on the sushi but helped the boss’s 8 year-old daughter with her chop sticks on little pieces of toast and pesto. 

Three new volunteers came in yesterday, two more today. We get the message. Most only stay for a week and our 14 days was appreciated. Boss lady made it a point to give us a lot of credit and that always makes one feel good. One of these days I’ll be trying to remember a detail about Baja or Tortuguros and it will all seem so far back in the mirror. But tonight I still have sand between my toes and tomorrow will be here too soon. 

LAS PLAYITAS

I remember when my kids were growing up, the youngest turned 14 and I thought, ‘I really do love these kids but I’m glad there aren’t any more.’ That’s how I feel about herding turtles this morning. I can see light at the end of the tunnel and when I get there, it will be good enough. Today is day #10, 4 to go and one of those will be a day off. Ain’t it the luck; back in 2012 in Nova Scotia I spent nearly 3 months exploring and discovering. In the last ten days I made a dozen new friends with fun things going on every night and I suppose that’s the way you want it; save the best for last. The ‘New’ is wearing off with the baby turtles; you notice it’s as much work as it is fun. When you hold one in your hand, only a few hours out of the egg, only minutes out of the sand, it still moves you in ways holding a new chicken does not. But repetition has a way of making the fantastic feel normal.

Yesterday, back against the dunes, a couple from Seattle was camping in their VW Vanagon. They are headed for Panama. We talked solar panels, tires and gray-water. The evening before, he lost his cell phone in the sand at the turtle release. Our new, quasi-volunteer from Sonora went up, shuffled around in the sand and found a blue I-phone. “I found your I-phone” she called back. But it turned out not to be his phone. It was locked but messages were showing up and she re-messaged the sender on her own phone. Within an hour the couple who lost the I-phone were there to reclaim it. I thought social media would change the world but it already has. 

By now what I can’t overlook about Olive Ridley babies is that they all look alike, absolutely cool but all alike. The magic, even the romance of herding turtles can lose its luster and you start paying attention to the pelicans, skimming low across the water in single file or staggered, double rows. They remind me of NASCAR races with birds drafting on each other’s tails. Just a foot or two off the water they bob up and down over waves, keeping the perfect, efficient flight relationship with the water. Unlike NASCAR, the front is not the best place to be so they alternate like bicycle racers in the peóton. You take your turn at the front so you can enjoy the free ride in someone else’s slip stream. I didn’t have to come to Mexico, I’ve been a pelican geek for years. 

We only released 20 or so babies last night. The beach was a mess and we had to go 200-250 meters down beach to find a stretch without tire or foot prints. Then, with the little Ridleys about half way to the surf, a huge pit bull came from nowhere, down into the turtle herd. We got to him before he could do any damage. He was a big pussy-cat, didn’t want to kill anything, belonged to people camping back behind the berm where the couple in the Vanagon had been. They apologized and no harm done, the turtles all made it. As wonderful as the experience is, as interesting as the visitors are, at the end of the day you can forget to be thankful. When there is so much “Cool-Beans” going on and you get used to it, life is treating you right. 

Everything I’ve experienced in Canada, the people, the culture, it’s all being validated here in Baja. Not a day goes by that Canadians haven’t dropped in. They have a collective conscience and a sweet little accent that I recognize without asking. Most have been from B.C. but all have been anxious to engage, to share a genuine concern for our planet’s well being and generously donate dollars and pesos to “Tortugueros Las Playitas”. They all express a need to be giving back. I really like Canada and its people. If I could start again like a little Olive Ridley and I surfaced south of Halifax or on the beach in Charlottetown, that would be a really good start. 

MAS O MENOS

The house cats like our company so we have to watch where we step; you like to think it’s affection but it’s all about food or body heat. Both tabby’s, one with white on its chest and front legs, the smaller one is all gray. The larger I call “Mas” and the all gray, “Menos”. More and less or, More or less, depending on the context. It’s morning but the sun is still behind the mountain and I have a sweatshirt and a hoodie on. Chickens and doves are doing call and response as I rewind yesterdays unfolding. Coffee time, just before we head for the beach, a lady comes through the gate so we offer her a cup. Her name was Susan and I forget the rest, a surgical nurse who lives in Sonora, an American expat. She came here from Sonora to learn about the turtle operation. A group of mostly medical people on the mainland side of the Gulf of California want to do the same. Seems they have Olive Ridleys but so many people leave tire tracks on the beach, babies can’t navigate them on their trek to the water and die there. They have done all the protocol with the government but want to jump start the nuts and bolts end. No need to reinvent the wheel. Susan is here afoot, came on the bus and spent the day with us. She wanted to talk to/with our boss but she was sick, didn’t come to the beach at all. 

Susan had been to Todos Santos before and knew her way around. We hit a hole-in-the-wall bakery she knew about for rolls and pastry. The bread has no preservatives so you should eat it the same day. Pastries are not nearly as sweet as we’re used to but then that’s probably a good thing. She is meeting us here again at 10:00 today, hope the boss is feeling better and can help her with specifics that only she can provide. 

Three nests started producing yesterday. At 2:00 p.m. we were scoreless but 12-13 min. later I went in to check and nest #15 had one baby up but it was baked in the dry heat, dead. Tried to revive it but no luck. If one made it up by itself there should be more just below. The top 4 or 5 inches of sand are hot so I sieved around gently with my fingers, looking for the next one. Right at the separation layer between warm damp and hot dry, I found one turtle. So he goes in the nursery outside, a partially buried tub with wet sand, in the shade. There were more deeper but no need to drag them up yet. It was after 4:00 when Faith, a 14 year-old who has been doing this for 4 years (parents moved here from north of the border) arrived and started digging. We had a big crowd of spectators at 6:00.

At the release, people want to get close and they tramp through the wet sand just above the swash zone, creating the same obstacle Susan's group has over in Sonora. The babies need to make their own way down the wet sand in order to imprint the location. Females will come back to this stretch of beach in 3-5 years to lay their own eggs. If the beach near the water is full of foot prints, the turtles can’t negotiate the terrain. We (Tortugueros) keep moving the show farther up the beach, telling them they have to stay up on top of the berm. Finally, far up the beach where the path to the water is smooth, everybody gets their wish. We released 63 Monday evening. It’s better to dig in the late afternoon and send them on their way at disk than find them in the morning. An early release puts them in harm’s way with predators and a day waiting on the beach stresses them. Nature would have it they go in the water as soon as they’re able. 

The sun has made it up but my fingers are cold and my hoodie is still up. I’ll close this up and fire up the coffee pot. Still a couple of hours before Susan comes. I’ll sip coffee until then, it will require a second pot regardless. 

DOMINGO

Todos Santos, Mexico (Baja, California Sur) - I am up early this a.m., it is light but the sun isn’t up yet. Nearby in the neighborhood, someone has a chicken coop, too much cackling not to be and I can hear big surf pounding again. Some of that is just the way sound funnels up from the beach but it’s big. It sounds a lot like wind gusting when you are inside but I’m out on the balcony and not a breath of air is moving. It is cold, for here; down in the 50’s at the moment. But then I’m used to the Great Lakes and weather simply is what it is.

One volunteer is a Biologist from Oakland, CA, his name is Paris. His status is a pay grade or two above ours. He can make decisions about the operation, dig or handle eggs, without consulting boss lady. Starting today, we are the only volunteers here other than him. More are arriving tomorrow or Tuesday but it’s all up to us until they do. Paris doesn’t seem to have a set time to be anywhere in particular but always present when transplanting nests or turtles are rising. So we get both the early and the mid day shifts, don’t have a long, lazy morning to squander.  Domingo, Sunday; tourism is a 7 day/week thing but banks and schools are closed. I’m out of pesos. If I need to pay for anything today I’ll have to use a credit card, at the ATM or with the vendedor. 

After 3 days of waiting for turtles to rise, yesterday was coming out day. Three babies from two different nests were at the top early so we waited all day for their mates to come up. In the wild it can take several days for all the hatchlings to make it up and out. At 4:00, Paris opened one nest and found, carefully, gently removing sand, lifting 74 tiny, ascending reptiles from the column. It was determined the other nest wasn’t ready to be liberated and will be the business for today. Our job was explaining to folks who came down for the release, what he was doing and why. The surf was perfect, none of them got pushed back up the beach face and they were on their way without any complications. It is kind of cathartic to see such a small creature, working so hard to fulfill its destiny, and the run-out from a wave pushes foam up the sand, a thin swash of water follows that reaches out like a big hand. It glides over one or more little pilgrims, they submerge under the retreating wave and in the blink of my eye, they have disappeared, minuscule links in life’s dance. Humans like to believe we are more blessed and thus, more important but I don't think so. Life is life, metabolism, replication, synthesis and response to stimulus; I am no more, no less than a glorified turtle.  We are hoping the nest we left alone has finished cooking and yields as many babies as yesterday. 

NEW DAY

I think my life is a recycling loop with a learning curve just long enough to get things learned and then it’s time to move on to something new and begin all over. In Michigan or Missouri or Louisiana, our lodging would be considered old, somewhat dilapidated, certainly not up to code and besieged with a terminal case of dusty dust, everywhere. The coffee pot is small but it works as does the refrigerator. The 2 kittens have free range of sink, counter tops, dishes etc. so you wash both after and before you do anything that relates to food. 

So, I asked my amiga, “Why do I like this so much?” She said, in so many words, because you’re a boy scout at heart and you identify so strongly with poor people. It’s like coming home after a difficult interface with affluence. I like honey in my coffee but had to settle for pineapple jam this morning. The honey leaves a sweet surprise in the last swallow but my surprise today was little morsels of pineapple. It was different but tasty and nice.

We’ve been nursing turtle eggs now for nearly a week, waiting like nervous grandparents but to no avail. The last 3 days have been fruitless but nature works and those eggs have only one way to go. Yesterday our Director, that’s an official sounding title and I suppose it’s proper; she worked her way down into two nests and shells are starting to break open. So hopes are high this morning. 

We keep thinking we will party after dark: there is a music festival going on and our cohorts said it was great last night. But we shower and shut down before we can crank up. Maturity is great but you reach a point of diminishing returns and sleep has more allure than boogie-woogie. 

New day, sun and high sky, no excuses, no complaints. What was it George Peppard on A-Team always said; “I love it when a plan comes together.” My plan is so loose it doesn’t matter what happens, I can believe it’s all coming together.  

ANOTHER DAY

Thinking about turtles hatching down in their nest, 2 feet deep in the sand, maybe deeper, then having to literally swim up against gravity, through sand to discover what the the new day has in store. It reminded me of a piece I wrote several years back about the “Waking-up” experience. It is so turtle-like. Not a flash of insight, more like a slow stirring of consciousness; awareness overtakes the void and you sense your own being. However long it takes depending on how exhausted you were and how well you slept, puzzle pieces begin to fall in place. “Oh yeah, I’m warm, it feels good. . . but I’m in a strange place. Oh yeah, Baja, we came to herd turtles.” Then total recall swooshes like the studio logo at the beginning of a movie. Wondering what I want most, the comfort of my warm bed or coffee, I know that life is good and I have at least another day to look and learn, to laugh and cry. It’s nothing al all like waking up needing to pee but then that scenario is far better than the alternative.  

Buddhism with its bent for reincarnation is far more complex than what we Occidentals might presume. The view that humans die and come back as someone or something else is not news. What eludes us is, believing that coming back to a human circumstance that is better than the one we left behind is short sighted. After all, Buddhist belief is that human experience in predicated on suffering. It may be far better to come back as a worm or maybe even a sea turtle. Lack of intelligence would be a blessing. Whatever, wherever one’s station in the food chain it would simply be, not lamenting your misery. Even worms seek pleasure and avoid pain, if you want to think of it that way but they don’t have a thought process so they don’t suffer. Buddhism is more about enlightenment through accepting the unavoidable and less about growing ambition and achievement.

So I’m left this morning with the obvious dilemma, as I watch our tiny turtles slide out with the tide, which of us is better off? But I am neither Buddhist nor sea turtle. I’m stuck with what my parents gave me and my fate is with that bumpy ride, for as long as it will have me. It is not a choice. Loss of habitat, industrial fishing and plastic in the sea; they all combine, putting sea turtles at risk, more and more. All sea turtles are threatened, some are endangered.  They don’t know it but I do. If they go extinct, what does that mean to us? What if dinosaurs go extinct . . . they did and we have taken their place. 

I’ll be checking in down on the beach in an hour or so, at the greenhouse with its 30-some transplanted nests. The last two days have been with no hatching/emerging action. Even if the turtle was sentient, it would have no memory of day light, its siblings or what crawling through dry sand requires. But it will be compelled to crawl toward the sound of waves breaking on the sand and the smell of salt air. Like yesterday, I’m hoping for a break-out day with maybe a hundred new Olive Ridleys to release this evening. If we don’t get them, they weren’t quite ready yet. I can wait another day. 

LONG OR SHORT TAIL

Todos Santos, Baja California Del Sur, Mexico - Thursday, January 18, 2018; Day #4. After 3 days of herding turtles (couldn’t help myself, couldn’t resist the metaphor) we get a day off. Yesterday was strange. Tuesday night we heard the surf pounding but didn’t know how big it was. No way for us to know how far the big waves traveled or how long it took for them to get here but the sky was clear and winds were soft. All there was, was the boom, boom, boom of gigantic waves. No action in the greenhouse but the big surf blew out several natural turtle nests down the beach that had not been discovered. Their eggs were scattered across the sand. They were reported and in the end, we received about 30 eggs at who knows what stage of development, but were deemed to have at least a remote chance of survival. The gut feeling is; they are doomed to spoil but it gave Sharon a chance to transplant a nest into the greenhouse which is good experience for her.

They found two babies on the sand, headed for the water but one had already died and the distance was too much for the other one. The coincidence that they were emerging as the storm hit is one in a million. Someone named it Henry and we nurtured it all day, getting rest and rehydration it was the only turtle taking the plunge last evening. Pay attention and you learn: a general indicator of gender with Olive Ridleys is tail length. Males are longer, females shorter and Henry had a short tail. So we changed the name for our own sense of accuracy. The night before we bid bon voyage to Pancho & Pepi without knowing the difference and they didn’t complain. There are 3 nests in the greenhouse that are due to hatch/emerge any day; maybe today already. We have the potential to release over a hundred little turtles tonight.

Here at the hacienda it’s a slow morning. The tortilla, apple, cheese & avocado rollup is still a great breakfast and I bought coffee last night at the mercado so we had that too. I’m looking off our balcony, through palms and over a low hill to the Pacific, about half a mile away. It’s not particularly beautiful. I’ve seen plenty of scenery that could only be described as Stunning or Spectacular and today’s view off the balcony is neither but it’s what we’ve got and I like it just the same. Two kittens live here, maybe 6 months; the cute stage. They have adopted us by now, curling up with us if they can slip in a window or through a door left ajar. One is between my butt and the chair back right now. Normally I shun cats but not today. Not that I don’t like them, I do; but at a distance. It’s Mexico and around here, whatever it is that seems askew is forgiven by that fact. I’ll be careful when I get up, not to disturb the cat. I don’t think the length of its tail has any bearing on anything I need to know. 

DESAYUNO

We landed in Cabo San Lucas last Sunday afternoon. People around us on the plane were stereotypes, cigar smoking, middle age men and their bejeweled wives, looking to drink a lot of Scotch at poolside while the women shop. Some of my friends (some just people I know) they said, “Oh, you’re going to love Cabo.” but i don’t think they had a clue. We got out of Cabo as fast as we could. Todos Santos is almost two hours from the airport, up the west coast about 50 miles. It is tourist enough and the gringos here want to keep it a secret. Humps, bumps and small, water-cut channels mark all the dusty, dirt side streets and most of the main, paved streets only get a C-. Even at that it is certainly cleaner and more laid back than border towns like Matamoros or Nogales and I am more comfortable here than I am in modern America - No Pit Bull politicians, no terrorism fixation, no radical ideologues, just wholesome Mexicans and expatriated gringos who like this side of DT's wall better than his. Too much, way-to-serious rip tide and undertoe at Todos Santos. Nobody swims in the ocean here. I think these two weeks are going to be sweet. 

We are staying at turtle camp's compound in town (on one of those disty, dirt side streets) more like a hostal with little casitas (one room sleeping w/rest room and a shared, outside, common kitchen.) This morning  early I heard people talking down in the kitchen so I went down. Avi and Tamara are a young couple from the west coast, here to save turtles. Really neat folks. When Sharon came down I looked in the refrigerator to see what we had there: flour tortias, apples, cheese and an avocado. So I made rollups with those ingredients. It was so good; the apples and avocado went together so well and the white colby cheese matched perfectly. I acted like I knew all along, that I was cool beans in the kitchen. The word for breakfast in Spanish is “Desayuno” and our desayuno this morning will be replicated again, often; not to mention I am using my Spanish more, every day and thatis a big plus.

At turtle camp our guru opened a nest that should have hatched a few days ago and discovered that none of the eggs had developed enough to hatch except for two who were trapped under lots of tainted eggs. The nest had been discovered by a fisherman, dug up, transported to cam and was suspect to begin with. The two little buggers that made it were all that survived out of 110 eggs. When we turned them loose at sunset there was a crowd of maybe 25 watching. The surf was big but coming in at an angle from the north. Last night it took a long time for the babies to make it out of swash zone. They would be pulled out, disappear for a moment and be pushed back up with the next wave. Today the 2 pilgrims, Pancho and Pepi were lined up for a race to the sea. They both took off, 5, maybe 7 strokes at a time in the sand then rest a little and 5 or 7 more strokes. A big wave crashed, sending a sluice of water and foam up and over the berm. All the people got wet and Pancho was carried up then down at an angle to the south. The next wave wasn’t as big but it didn’t need to be. Pancho disappeared into the froth at the bottom, where the waves were crashing. Two waves later, Pepi took the same ride. It was over in no time at all. 

We were disappointed that there weren’t more babies to set free but it was a great ending for the day. Thinking now about the two new Olive Ridleys, I wonder how they are doing. Four hours into their journey, the odds are stacked against them but we did all we could to even those odds. I think even the hardest shell, don’t-give-a-damn would feel a tug of emotion, one way or another. We must be hardwired that way. No bigger than an Oreo cookie with tiny paddles, plunging headlong into the Pacific Ocean, nothing but instinct and good fortune on their side. How does one not feel something? It’s getting late. Here at the compound we are just under a mile from the beach and, over barking dogs and the crowing of renegade roosters, the pounding surf is unmistakable and I am feeling pretty good. 

TORTUGUEROS

Day #2, Jan. 16, 2018. We’ve been through a day at Turtle Camp, sleeping late but then this is Mexico. Got our orientation yesterday. Informal is the way everything rolls here but there was no mistake about what is important and what is not. If we (Tortugueros staff) don’t get it right, baby turtles die in the nest, all of them. It is cold enough in winter that all eggs in natural nests are lost: they don’t develop. We have maybe 30 nests relocated to the greenhouse, about 30 nests already hatched and released with more being transferred as we discover them. We only have a couple of hours after eggs are laid to get them moved or they start developing and it’s too late to move them. Then it takes 50-60 days of TLC before they hatch, 30” down. Temperature inside the greenhouse is critical for success but also fatal to the babies once they reach the surface. We have about 15 or 20 minutes to move each new turtle outside, into a buried, half full bucket of damp sand and kept in the shade. At the end of the day (sunset - when the sun touches the water) we go to the beach and, as many locals and tourists show up to see and learn, to participate in the release. At the edge of wet sand, shallow plastic tubs with sand and a few turtles are tipped and gently released all up and down the beach. Then it’s up to the turtle. 

Last night there were 26 turtles, 83 the night before. Some don’t make it. Life it seems is risky business. Under natural circumstances, the weak die and the birds eat. We release as the sun is setting and birds are compelled to find a roost for the night. “Tortugueros” buries all of the organic remains in a far removed sand dune, otherwise birds find it and remember where they found it. So we leave nothing on the beach or near the green house. Then it’s dark, parents and their kids go home, we do a cursory clean up and head back to the compound. A hot shower is all we want and Sharon was in bed asleep at 8:30. I started to write but decided to wait until morning. I’m starting to think about something to eat; have no idea about how things will unfold today but I trust someone will point the way. 

AND COUNTING

Thirty six hours and counting; could have hunkered down for a typical, midwest winter but Baja is calling and I’ve no reason not to answer the call. “Tortugueros” is a nonprofit organization that preserves and protects sea turtles on Mexico’s Pacific coast. Sharon Flanagan, (mi amiga) and I have volunteered for a two week commitment. Unlike the military, we pay all of our expenses and work long hours for an environmental cause, sea turtles in this case. The turtle station is on the Pacific side, maybe 25 miles up from Cabo San Lucas at a village named Todos Santos. I’ll need my passport and answer some questions but it’s really no different than flying to Seattle. You wait until someone in uniform says, “Next” and you take your turn, tell the truth and get on the plane. 

At Todos Santos the water is relatively cold and the beaches are not great for tourists but sea turtles think it’s a great place to start a family. The problem is, both animal predators and human poachers would dig up or destroy all the eggs leaving in the end, no new turtles. The Tortugueros operation either relocates each new nest to a new site inside a fenced corral where predators can not get to the eggs or (for reasons I will surely learn about) eggs are relocated to a sand filled box in a green house where they get lots of TLC. 

There are several jobs to be done and volunteers rotate duties so everyone gets the full experience. One job is the night shift: taking the 4-wheel ATV on patrol up and down the beach. If you discover turtle tracks leading up to the berm you follow, find the turtle or new nest and collect the eggs, relocating them to a new spot inside the nearest corral. You have to dig a hole that is as similar in size and shape to the natural nest, carefully deposit eggs and cover with sand. Mark the spot with a stake noting species, number of eggs, time & date so they know when that nest should be hatching. All the time, you are aware of when other nests are due to hatch and you keep track of them as well. When little turtles start popping up you set a small, screen fence around it, count turtles until all the littles have arrived. Then you put them in a tub, take them down to just short of the surf and release them. 

Early in the season, most of the work is with new nests. Later, it’s more about hatching and releasing. Our visit is to be there on the cusp, near the end of egg laying and start of hatching. With four different species and different gestation periods, we should stay busy. It’s the best reason I can think of to stay up all night. Of course there is day work on the beach and the green house, with visitors and tourists and we won’t be the only volunteers. Meeting people may be as fulfilling as the work. It doesn’t matter if I like them or not, the more you travel, the more people you share something with, you grow a little, the more tolerant and accepting you become. At the same time, I don’t expect to encounter any selfish, tunnel vision assholes doing the volunteer thing. 

Back in ’09, volunteering at Kenai Fjords Nat’l Park I learned that volunteer duties come with some benefits. We will get some time off to travel so we will probably rent a car. Whale watching in the Sea of Cortez/Gulf of California is great this time of year. Both Gray and Humpback whales are birthing and nursing their calves there. You’re almost guaranteed a close encounter. Cabo and La Paz are about the same distance, both noted for whale watching. So here I am, still a day and a half out. I need to pick up a prescription at the pharmacy, need a new head light (flashlight for my head) and some new socks but I’ll be ready when they start boarding. 

SOMETHING PROFOUND

This time last year I was on my way to Arizona: a neophyte Snow Bird with a pickup truck and camper. The trip turned out to be a good education; expensive but good. There is an old axiom about the sweet taste of low price being soon forgotten while the bitterness of poor quality is long remembered. My border town Mexican dentist experience will be long remembered. I know; anybody can have a bad day so my reservations are with me. I’ll eat the blame but certainly, not do it again. Then in the spring I got caught up in the drug addiction, self destruction of a close, long time friend. That was expensive as well. In hind sight it should have been crystal clear, you think you can be part of the solution but you can’t. 

I don’t count years so much as I notice seasons come and go. It’s bitter winter and I’m about ready to go south again. This time I’ll have a companion and we’ll jet south. We vacation together and she couldn’t resist this one. Sea turtles down in Baja, Mexico need help hatching and reaching the sea. We have volunteered to be part of the program. I always took to winter’s cold, you just have to dress for it. But now, even dressed right, it wears me thin. So the two of us old biology buffs, we will shelter and protect turtle nests against predators and poachers. We did a New Year’s cruise to Cozumel a few years back which was just alright and I think the turtles will be way-more fun. Digging holes on a sandy beach for a worthy cause; what better for an old beach-walking hole-digger? 

I just learned this morning that another high school class mate has passed. We weren’t close but it underscores how temporary and fragile this life is. I’d write something profound but everything is profound when today is the only day that maters. I woke up early this morning feeling good. So I dozed off for half an hour and did it again.  Ain’t it great!

FRIED CLAMS

I must be getting old: I remember when “All You Can Eat” at a restaurant was a good thing. I guess it was when my kids were little. Being a teacher, we were all on the same calendar and could travel over the Christmas holidays. The long drive to Kansas City usually put us in St. Louis at dinner time. This would have been the late 1970’s. The Buffet was just off the Inter-state: people lined up at one of many serving stations while food went by on a conveyer belt. The food pans came out, made a big 180 degree arc around the serving stations and back into the kitchen, a lot like baggage pick up at the air port. The good stuff might be all gone when the pan reached people at the far end of the conveyer. My twin boys were probably 7 or 8, they had discovered deep fried clams and couldn’t get enough. Our deal was, take what you want, all you want but eat all you take. On their 2nd or 3rd trip to the serving line, a lady in the next spot down stream obviously wanted clams too but my boys cleaned out the pan before it got to her. She didn’t scream but she did stomp her feet. She didn’t go home hungry but she wasn’t happy either. It was a good lesson; all you can eat buffets are civil on principle but serving line protocol is tooth and claw. 

In the new century I am more inclined to just want what I want rather than all I can eat. You grow, you learn, your metabolism changes and it’s just food. I know; it can taste good and the act of eating with your friends is ritual that began with our tree-climbing ancestors. Old habits are hard to break. I don’t know if it was a great discovery or if I brain-washed myself. Either way, food is not my friend. I need some on a regular basis but slightly hungry feels better now than slightly full. I still like buffets as I can create combinations that are not on a menu and can see the food before I decide. One of my twins took me to a Chinese place recently. He helped himself to sushi while I worked on ginger-green-beans and shrimp. Hanging out with my kids is great, sharing a meal is even better; not for the food but realizing they survived their youth, remember their manners and we still like each other. He went back for seconds on the sushi but I passed. One plate was enough. Next time will be my turn; I’ll take him Mediterranean for falafel, humus and lentil soup. 

ABOUT AS HAPPY

           Li’l Abner was a cartoon strip in the funny papers when I was growing up. He and his hillbilly cohorts lived in the stereotypic little, backwoods town of Dogpatch. One character in particular was a well meaning old guy in a ragged, black outfit named Joe Btfsplk. He was so unlucky his own little rain cloud followed him around. Misfortune was his reward for getting up each day and everyone avoided him after all, he was wet all the time. If he came inside the cloud came with him. So if I were from Dogpatch I think I would have been down the pecking order from Abner but well above Joe B. Still I meet different, for lack of a better word, people in coincidental, random circumstances who epitomize the Dogpatch ethos and I wonder, is it me, do I attract these folks or is it my mother’s wisdom come to haunt me? “There but for the Grace of God. . .” 

           Yesterday I was in New Orleans’ Lakeview neighborhood, shopping for tires. It was early and I was hungry so I stopped at a Panera’s Bakery-Cafe for a nice little breakfast quiche and coffee that rivals Star Bucks at half the price. I sat in a booth. Just off my shoulder across the isle was a man like me, old enough to be retired, at 9:30 on Tuesday morning, no place special to be. He was seated, talking over coffee to a standing man who was trying to escape. The seated man was still talking as his audience slipped out the door. He turned to me and kept on talking, something about cold weather and hot coffee. I nodded and he kept on. Shortly I realized it was incumbent on me to move over to his table or we would be shouting across the room like longshoremen on the docks. We shook hands; I missed his name but not the syrupy, Big Easy accent. It’s nothing like the slow southern drawl you find in Mississippi or Georgia, more like Brooklyn without the hard edge. In New Orleans they drop “r’s” too and run words together.  

           He asked where I was from then told me not to answer. He wanted to figure it out for himself. Obviously, I wasn’t from N.O. He said, “Not Lake Charles,” then a pause, “not even Louisiana.” I nodded. “You sound like California.” I thought I’d have a turn to talk but he motored on. Maybe 6 ft., well over 200 lbs, more like 250; his hands and fingers were huge. With a wide jaw, heavy jowls under a crumpled felt hat, he began a litany of what’s good and what’s not about any and everything. “We got the bess… sea food in the worl’… heaa…” He retired in ’99, two years before I did. He worked for a Ford dealer for a long time but got laid off; spent the next 20 years driving a cab. He asked but didn’t listen when I told him what I did. His wife smoked herself to death a decade ago and his kids are struggling to keep their jobs. 

           He reminded me of Dogpatch and Joe Btfsplk. If he wasn’t Joe before, he is now. He had been leaning into the conversation, or monologue, whichever; and he leaned back, pushed his hat back and took a deep breath. “How about the Pres-dent?” He rolled his eyes, “Everybody hates the Pres-dent. They hate ‘im.” He went on to blame everything bad on Obama. “That black Obama gave it all to the Mexicans and Muslims and now they hate the Pres-dent.” He had his say on bitchy women and political correctness, fake news and Obama Care. I nodded now and then, leaned forward and back. My coffee was gone but I could hear my mom, crystal clear. “When someone needs a friendly ear, lend an ear.” So I listened. When he ran out of material it only took a few breaths to tap off in another direction. A good ten minutes had taken their leave and I knew it was time for me to move on. I stood up, offered my hand and he took it. His Thank-you was sincere; “Nice talkin’ with you.” I echoed the sentiment and an affirmative, “You got it right on the sea food.” Going out the door I heard him talking but didn’t look back. 

          This morning I was in Baton Rouge, still looking at tires. I stopped at Waffle House. My waitress was a 30-ish woman, attractive as one can be in a soiled, brown apron, dealing coffee, waffles and dirty dishes. Her name was Amanda; I read it on the ticket. She was calling out to other customers and to the cook. The smile and tone of voice were convincing, natural, hard to fake. She told me today was supposed to be her day off but they needed help and she could use the money. She got my order right the first time and topped off my coffee before I knew I was ready. My bill was $7 and small change and I was wondering how much Amanda earns at Waffle House. I didn’t know at the time but it’s $3.95 hr. plus tips. I left a $10 on the counter and she thanked me. If I’d known about the $3.95 at the time I would have left more. Abraham Lincoln is credited with saying, “Folks are about as happy as they make their minds up to be.” Joe couldn’t make up his mind but Amanda could. I still need to get new tires. 

THEREFORE I AM

I woke up this morning to a brand new year. It is so easy to anthropomorphize animals, even objects and ideas, even years. I remember cartoons on New Year’s Day of a gray bearded old curmudgeon limping off on a crutch while the New Year dropped out of a cloud in a diaper, without a clue of what would go down on his watch. When it takes only 365 days to spend a lifetime, it has to hit the ground running. So for me, this new year gets a day to feel good but tomorrow will be another story. The new year won’t be new any more, it needs to be walking and talking on the 2nd day, able to communicate ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ - able to ask the big ‘Why’ question. By its 2nd sunrise the romance will be over and blame will come from every direction.  What a rotten year already; it’s so cold when it’s supposed to be mild and people haven’t changed a bit, just as mean and selfish as last year. Last year will start looking better after all, a little peace on earth, good will to man gave the last two weeks a good feel, even it it was mostly imagination.  Happy New Year. 

The best thing about 2017 is framed eloquently in the title of a recent Willie Nelson song; “I Woke Up Still Not Dead Again Today.” Life is pretty special. I have a rock from Grand Canyon that is over a billion years old but it doesn’t metabolize anything, can’t replicate itself. People are wonderful and terrible in the same breath, depends on how you feel in the moment and changing our minds comes easy. But I think therefore I am and wonderful or not, it beats a billion years of rock. In 2018 I’ll look forward to wonderful wake-ups and well deserved fall-sleeps. I hope it’s not too much to ask.