by Anne George
Haley and I stepped back into the living room as Tammy Berliner came in. “Good,” she said. “I was hoping you were here. I just got in and found a note from Jack and Sophie. They’ve gone to Navarre and said for me to bring you to see the turtles if you were home and wanted to come.”
Of course we wanted to come. Should we bring flashlights? Blankets?
“No lights,” Tammy said. “Jack and Sophie will have flashlights, for later.”
Blankets? Sure, we might have to wait a while. And insect repellent. The dunes were full of no-see-ums on a hot, muggy night like this. And mosquitoes.
“I’m going to ask my father if he wants to come. Okay?” Haley said. “He’s sitting on the stile.”
“Sure. It’s really something to see. How about I meet you in the parking lot in about ten minutes. I just got in from work and need to put on some jeans.”
We agreed that would be fine.
“Go get your father,” I told Haley.
It was the beginning of one of the most haunting and memorable evenings of my life. The five of us piled into our car (Fred insisted on driving) and headed toward Navarre Beach.
“Don’t they come in at Destin?” Fred asked Tammy.
“Too built up. They come in along the National Seashore where it’s dark. Any light, even a match being struck in the dunes, will send them right back into the water.”
“Are they endangered?” Frances asked.
“The loggerheads, the kind that usually come in and lay their eggs along these beaches, are considered threatened. There are five types of sea turtles that nest along the United States’ coastline. The other four are on the endangered list. Leatherback turtles are almost extinct.”
“That’s terrible!” Haley exclaimed.
Tammy, who was sitting on the front seat with Fred, turned to look at us. “Y’all don’t want to get me started on this. I’ll preach to you all night, and lose my temper, to boot.”
“I’d like to hear about it,” I said.
“Well, I can’t spout out the numbers like Millicent could. But I know that something like 55,000 loggerheads drown in shrimp nets every year in spite of the turtle excluder devices that are supposed to let them escape, and thousands choke on plastic trash or get caught in boat propellers. And if they survive to return to their nesting site, condominiums have been built there. It’s a pretty bleak outlook for animals so hardy they’ve been around since the age of the dinosaurs.”
“And man is doing them in,” Fred said.
Tammy nodded. “The only good thing is that man is beginning to realize what he’s done. There are more and more people becoming aware of the sea turtle’s plight and trying to help. There’s a real active volunteer group here along the Panhandle.”
We were all silent for a moment and then Tammy spoke again. “Jack grew up here, in Mary Esther. He says when he was a boy, he and some of his buddies would come out to the beach at night and turn turtles on their backs. They can weigh up to four hundred pounds, you know, so it was a big deal to upend one. Or they would ride them. Now one of the things he does as a volunteer is talk to school kids, tell them how the turtles just can’t deal with what we’re doing to them and how they should never bother them. And Sophie’s on call for nesting watch. Millicent brought her out here one night and she was hooked.”
“That’s wonderful,” Frances said.
“It’s a drop in the bucket, but it’s a start.”
“The people on nesting watch,” Fred asked, “how do they know when to go to the beach? Or is someone there every night?”
“People call. There’s a Turtle Watch Hotline. The turtles tend to come in close to the beach during the late afternoon and rest until night, and people in boats spot them, or even helicopter pilots from Eglin Field. They’re good about calling. Volunteers walk the beaches every morning looking for nests and staking them, but it’s good if we can actually tag the female turtles. There are all kinds of studies being done on their migration patterns.”
The mention of Millicent had made me think of Blue Bay Ranch. “Do any turtles still nest on the bay beaches?” I asked.
“Sure,” Tammy said. “If it’s dark enough. That’s one of the things that bothered Millicent about Blue Bay. They’ve already lost their nesting spots over on the Niceville side of Choctawhatchee Bay to developments. That’s why she insisted on keeping part of the property as wilderness.” Tammy pointed. “Turn left up here, Fred. We have to go over the bridge.”
We went through the small resort town of Navarre Beach and soon were driving between high dunes that marked the National Seashore.
“How will we find them?” Fred asked.
“We’ll see the car. It’ll be no problem.”
And it wasn’t. On this deserted strip of beach, the Berliners’ Bronco was the only parked car. Fred pulled off the road and parked behind it.
“Okay,” Tammy said. “No lights. No talking. If the turtle is already laying her eggs, nothing we can do will disrupt her. But she may not be on the beach yet. So let’s be quiet.”
We got out of the car, shutting the doors as gently as possible, and followed Tammy over the dunes. The sand was so white, the moon gave a surprising amount of light. Fred reached over and took my hand. It was hard to remember in this setting how mad I was at him.
The dunes along this part of the beach are so high that the water is not visible. One of them is nicknamed The Matterhorn; fortunately, that wasn’t the one we had to climb, but we were out of breath when we reached the top and saw the Gulf.
Tammy paused and looked around. “There,” she whispered. About forty feet to our right and lower down the dune, we could see two figures crouching low. We made our way toward them.
“Anything?” Tammy whispered as we sat down beside Jack and Sophie.
“She’s trying to make up her mind,” Jack whispered back. “She’s been out of the water twice and gone back. Skittish.”
We settled into the sand to wait. Fred’s hand still held mine, and in a few moments, I was aware of a pulse beating between us. Was it my heart? His? I had cried on the phone, and he had come to rescue me. Wasn’t that what I had wanted?
I think during part of the wait that I was half asleep, drifting somewhere between the slightly hazy stars, the distant lightning, and the water that rippled phosphorescent, white on white sand. At one point, a meteor burst across the sky, green, glowing. Fred’s hand squeezed mine.
And then someone (Sophie?) touched my shoulder and I was no longer drifting but watching a huge black form materialize from the water. It came slowly, dragging itself across the sand, a creature of the sea ponderous in an alien world.
We were afraid to breathe. In the distance we could hear music and the hum of an airplane. Would the noise frighten her off? She stopped, and against the white sand, we could see her huge head darting this way and that. Was all safe?
She lumbered forward again, dragging herself onto the dry, upper beach, through the first vegetation. Then she stopped. In a moment we heard the rhythmic scoop of sand.
“We can go see her now,” Jack Berliner murmured. “She’s nesting.”
“Wait a minute,” Tammy said. “Let her get the nest dug.”
So we waited for the sound of digging to stop, and then we followed Jack to the spot where the turtle had disappeared.
“Any of you ever seen a turtle lay eggs?” he asked.
We all shook our heads no, with the exception of Tammy and Sophie.
“Well, they cry.”
I remembered that Sophie had told us that.
“I just thought I’d better warn you. They aren’t real tears, of course; they wash sand from her eyes and get the salt out of her system.”
“So they say,” Tammy said.
Sophie was the first to shine a light on the turtle. “Oh, look, Daddy. She’s a big one!”
And she was. She had looked huge crossing the beach. Up close, she was immense. Sophie’s flashlight, and then Jack’s, shone do
wn on a reddish-brown shell that was larger than a table. From this shell a huge reptilian head jutted forth. She paid no attention to us. Tears poured from her eyes and she groaned like any woman in labor.
“Damn,” Fred said in awe. But Haley asked if it was all right to touch her.
“Sure,” Jack said. “The Rolling Stones could be playing on her back right now and she wouldn’t know it.”
The turtle groaned loudly. Haley knelt beside her and patted her shell. “It’s okay,” she said. “Push!” She didn’t think it was a damn bit funny when we laughed.
“She’s pushing,” Tammy said. “Show them, Jack.”
“Okay. Come on, Sophie. We forgot to count the eggs.” The two of them knelt behind the turtle and shone their flashlights into the surprisingly deep hole the turtle had dug in such a short time.
“I count nine, Daddy. She’s just started.”
“Y’all look,” Jack invited us. “Keep counting, Sophie.” He got up and I knelt in his place. Eggs the size of Ping-Pong balls were dropping into the nest.
“Oh, my,” I said, pulling Fred down beside me. “Look at this.”
“Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen,” Sophie counted.
“Let me see.” Haley pushed between Fred and me. Frances was right behind her. “Lord have mercy,” she said when she saw the size of the eggs and how they were popping out. “Now this is the way to do it.”
“Nature trying to beat the odds,” Tammy said. “The babies that hatch and find their way to the water still face all kinds of survival problems.”
“But we’ll be back in two months to see they get to the water,” Jack said. “We can do that much.” He held up a small strip of metal. “I’m going to clamp her tag on now so we’ll know if she comes back.” He turned the light on the metal. “She’s number 349, Sophie.”
Sophie nodded. “Forty-one, forty-two.”
“Where do you tag her?” Fred asked, getting up to see.
“Front left flipper. It doesn’t hurt her. It’s like piercing ears.”
Which hurt like hell, I remembered, but I didn’t say anything.
“Who keeps up with all this stuff?” Fred asked.
Jack knelt to his job. “The Florida Department of Natural Resources. Millicent was the Okaloosa County volunteer coordinator and she handled the information and gave out tag permits. You’ve got to have control over the tagging or it won’t do any good. I guess I’ll have to find out tomorrow who to report Miss 349 to.”
Miss 349 had not flinched when Jack put the tag on her flipper. The Ping-Pong-ball-sized eggs were still popping out, forming a white mound in the nest.
“How many?” Haley asked Sophie.
“Seventy-two. Millicent and I counted 153 one night last week.” Sophie didn’t look up from the nest, but in a moment she brushed the back of her hand across her eyes.
On the horizon, lightning streaked across a cloud, and moments later we heard distant, muffled thunder. I looked at the dark water of the Gulf, at the turtle laying her eggs, at my daughter, her face filled with awe as she knelt in the sand, at all of us caught in a small pool of light on this beach on this primal night. It was something I’ll always remember.
“She’s through,” Sophie said. “A hundred twenty-one.”
“Let’s move back,” Tammy said.
The turtle heaved herself from the nest, turned, and clumsily began to push sand over the egg-filled hole with her front flippers, throwing more sand around after she had finished so the site would be concealed. Then she lumbered home to the Gulf.
“Will she be back next year?” Frances asked.
“She’ll be back,” Sophie answered.
Chapter 14
The dark shape became one again with the water. Behind her, in the sand, she had left a wide rut that looked like a tractor had been driven across the beach.
“Amazing.” Haley voiced what all of us were thinking.
“We mark the nest now,” Jack explained. “It won’t keep the ghost crabs and raccoons out, but people have learned to respect the nests. Some of them the hard way. This is federal property and they’re breaking the Endangered Species Act if they bother them.” He took a wooden stake, pushed it deep into the sand, and then tamped it. On the side of the stake was the number sixteen. “This is the sixteenth nest we’ve marked,” he said. “I’m sure there are some we’ve missed, but sixteen is pretty good. They’ll be coming in here until August, even September sometimes, to lay their eggs, and by that time these eggs will be hatching. That’s when the volunteers really get busy. The adult turtles won’t go near a light and the hatchlings are just the opposite, heading straight for them, even headlights on the road.”
“I want to be here when this nest hatches,” Haley said.
“I’m looking forward to it,” Tammy said. “Jack’s seen the hatchlings, but Sophie and I haven’t.”
There was another distant roll of thunder; the clouds were building in the southwest.
“Looks like we might get that storm,” Jack said.
“Do you think more turtles will come in tonight?” Haley asked him.
“Maybe. I’ll stick around until midnight. Joe and Edna Tarrant are coming then. When there have been sightings, we try to keep several watchers posted down the beach.”
“I had no idea all this went on,” I admitted.
Sophie looked up from the notebook she had been writing in. “I want to stay, too.”
“Ask your mother.”
“I’ll stay with you,” Tammy said.
The four of us thanked them, told them good night, and crossed the dunes without talking, still under the spell of what we had just witnessed. The sound of our feet scrunching in the sand was loud in the quiet night. And then from the pine barrens beyond the road came the most ungodly scream I’ve ever heard in my life. Multiply Sophie’s Tarzan yell exponentially and you’re getting close.
And then came one of the shining moments of Fred’s life. We three women threw ourselves at him for protection. Threw ourselves so hard, we literally upended him in the sand, knocking him on his butt with the three of us on top of him.
The scream came again, with a protracted moan this time. Someone was being tortured in the pine barrens. Dismembered in the pine barrens by a sadistic monster.
“My God!” Frances moaned.
“Do something, Papa!” Haley said.
“Get off him!” I pushed my way under the other two. I could feel Fred shaking. “You’ve hurt him.” Fred shook harder. “Get up, sweetheart, if you can.”
“It’s a screech owl,” he said. “Just a plain old screech owl. Y’all let me up.” He started snickering.
“Are you sure?” Haley asked.
“I can’t believe you city women don’t know what a screech owl sounds like.” The snicker became a laugh.
The three of us got up and brushed the sand off. “Hush,” I told him.
But he laughed like hell all the way to the car. In fact, we were across the bridge and headed east down 98 before his fits of laughter stopped. The last one was accompanied by a pat on my leg and a request to clean off his glasses, which were fogging up.
“I can’t believe that turtle,” Haley finally said into the silence.
“And the number of eggs!” Frances was trying.
After five more miles of silence, Fred announced that the Berliners were very nice people. We all agreed that they were. But how, he asked, could they work in Atlanta and live in Destin and wasn’t Gulf Towers still a “no children under sixteen” facility?
I had forgotten about that. But the moment he said it, I realized that Millicent had bent the rules for the dark-eyed Sophie. It also meant that while there were plenty of children visiting during vacation seasons, much of the time Sophie would live in a world of adults.
We explained to Fred about the Berliners’ jobs, that they had wanted to get Sophie away from Atlanta.
“She’s very precocious,” Haley said. “And I think they thought the environ
ment would be safer here.” She paused. “That’s ironic, isn’t it. Anyway, Sophie can’t spread her wings quite as widely here.”
“She still does a pretty good job, though. Wait until you see her black gauze outfit and her bikini,” Frances added.
I came to her defense. “But she’s also got the turtles and sharing them with her parents. She didn’t have anything like that in Atlanta.”
“True,” the others agreed.
Mary Alice and Berry West were sitting on the sofa drinking wine when we came in.
“Hey, y’all,” she said. “Where’ve you been?”
“To see the turtles.”
“It was wonderful.”
“You should have been with us.”
Berry stood and was introduced to Fred. “There’s some beer in the refrigerator, Fred,” he said. “Can I get you one?”
“Sure.” Fred sat in one of the wicker rockers.
“Ladies?” Berry asked.
We all declined. Fred leaned forward. “I think Mary Alice’s glass needs topping off there.”
“Of course.” Berry headed for the kitchen.
Fred smiled at Sister who scowled back at him. “How you doing, Mary Alice?”
“Fine.”
“I heard you did a great reading tonight.”
“Thanks.”
“You ever heard a screech owl?”
“No. Why?”
“You should have been with us a while ago. They get your attention right off.”
“I’ll vouch for that,” Haley said.
Berry came from the kitchen with Fred’s beer and the wine bottle. “How many turtles did you see?”
Frances spoke up. “One huge one. She laid 121 eggs.”
“I hope some of them make it,” Berry said, pouring more wine into Sister’s glass.
Fred opened his beer with such an exaggerated swoosh that we all turned to look at him. “Well,” he said, “you never can tell. I have an idea that some of them will.”
“I do, too,” Haley agreed.
“Where did y’all eat?” I changed the subject.
“At The Boat House,” Sister said. “It was great. I had broiled grouper and Berry had scampi. Angel hair pasta. The doggy bags are in the refrigerator.”
