Volunteer Journal

It's really hard to wake up every day and know that all the work that you do is useless if you don't change the way you act. Turtling is a job that has to be taken seriously like a responsibility with the sea turtle and the planet and all their inhabitants. Being able to spend two months here has been very revealing because you not only learn about ecology, you learn about loving, respecting each other, being a great team mate with all your team and try not to be selfish. This is something that we tend to forget sometimes.

The night where I thought we did a great team work was when we had to find a certain turtle we were looking for weeks ago. We had to change a tag on the turtle. When we finally found it we realized that it was 'the turtle' and the situation felt tense. The turtle was escaping. Some volunteers tried to hold the turtle while I ran to the nearest hotel to look for some pliers to remove the original tag. Not more than 5 minutes had passed but the adrenaline affected my nervous system. After running like crazy and articulating to the concierge the few words that I was able to pronounce, I got the pliers.

When I went back to the beach, I noticed that the turtle was about to leave. One of my team mates had his face all covered in sand and was battling to hold it. We had to act immediately.
Armando, took the pliers, the gag and prepared himself to put the new and definite tag. When it was done, we released the turtle. Exhausted, we headed to the bathroom and cleaned everything that the turtle threw at us. It was painful for all of us but the satisfaction of doing a great team work left a smile on my face.

-Art Stranksy
July, 2007