We took it as a good sign that within minutes of arriving and checking out the balcony view, a ray jumped 4ft into the air to impress a potential mate. Gibraltar Beach is a stretch of relatively secluded beach, on the shore of the Oracabessa Fish Sanctuary. Most significantly, the beach is one of the few nesting spots for the critically endangered hawksbill sea turtle. Our host, a "retired" British expat named Mel Tennant, has become locally famous as the turtle man. He lives on the beach in a house that looks from the outside like a construction ruin, but actually has a couple of small units that he rents out to visitors like us.
Over the last 12 years, Mel has become the hawksbill advocate, guard and nanny. He points proudly to the ever-increasing success rate (measured by percentage of eggs that hatch and return to the sea successfully, and the increasing numbers of mothers coming in to lay a nest). This improvement is very hands-on; while we were there, Mel literally dug up a nest from a site where the cliff drainage kills the eggs and reburied it elsewhere. The hawksbill, it seems, is so critically endangered that we do not have the luxury of "letting nature be nature".
The first hatchlings out of the nest.
A certain amount of this success is by way of good PR. First and foremost, the Fish Sanctuary and the local fisherman's cooperative have achieved the kind of understanding so rare in these kind of environmental negotiations. The fishing yields get better every year just outside the Sanctuary buoys, and word is spreading along the coast. Now, the locals are also guardians of the turtles, and "there hasn't been a turtle-kill in 5 years". Mel takes mixed groups like ours on the beach all the time, letting them experience the magic of a hatched nest making its way to the sea. We're mostly spectators, but the group helps by quickly taking the unearthed hatchlings and rinsing them in the sea, returning them to the top of the beach (because the journey to the water is critical, it's when they "set their internal GPS" so they can return in 3-5 years to mate and lay), and then guarding them on their strenuous trek to the water, watching out for non-native mongoose and local herons.
The strenuous trek to the sea.
Rinsed & ready!
Leaders of the pack.
After we had rinsed a couple of baby turtles, marveling at their strong little flippers, we put them back in a clean bucket where they promptly began to scrabble towards the sea. Jennifer was given the honor of tipping the bucket; once out, the hatchlings wriggle energetically, using their strong little flippers to propel themselves seaward. We stepped carefully, laughing because sometimes a turtle would crawl right over our foot. We were absolutely prohibited from helping them in any way, which gets difficult to stomach as the the stragglers seem to tire and get hung up along the way. But they all made it, the last one was cheered just as the first one had been. Now, 36 hours later, the current has taken them to the western tip of Jamaica on their way to Cuba before they will swing around into the Atlantic for a multi-year tour of Spain then Africa and back.
Late that night, Mel woke us to see a mother hawksbill laying her nest. We had missed her arrival and 90 minutes of digging and laying, but did get to see her finish up and head back to the water. She was a tagged returnee, Mel had her on record from a few years prior, and about the size of a large steamer trunk. Photos are not allowed (other than when they are actually laying because, Mel says, they go into a kind of non-responsive trance; which is why that is also the moment to staple the tag onto mothers not yet tagged).
The Oracabessa Foundation and Fish Sanctuary
Gibraltar Beach (from the balcony of Mel's place)
The Fish Sanctuary was started by a couple of Peace Corps volunteers, with funding by Chris Blackwell of Island Records fame and owner of the Golden Eye hotel out on the point. In addition to enforcing a no-fishing zone, the Foundation plants coral. We met with the administrator (also a former Peace Corps volunteer that's stayed on in Jamaica) while the fisherman on the little dock were cleaning their catch and building large chicken-wire traps. Then Sanctuary wardens took us out to the reef where we snorkeled, watched their two divers tending to the coral, and enjoyed sightings of a very large snapper, a great school of blue tang, parrot fish, and many others of the usual reef suspects. Diving in Jamaica is not the same quality as some other spots in the Caribbean, but the Foundation hopes that with improved coral reefs will come more eco-tourism. And they are not the only ones, along the coast many fishing cooperatives and hotels are asking for the same to be done in their waters. With luck, the Oracabessa model will be expandable. Their people certainly are working towards that. (Here's their website with a video about the Sanctuary: http://www.oracabessafishsanctuary.org/)
Oh, and if you want to watch our family video of the turtle release:
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