The most amazing thing today happened at the end of the day. We stopped at a beach that we could see from the road as we passed, because we saw surfers in the water. What we stumbled across was a group of people standing behind a rope line on the beach, looking at giant sea turtles! They are called "Honu" and are Hawaiian Green Sea Turtles. We saw a few on a beach with rocks on it, and then realized that the "rocks" were more turtles! After swimming all day, they crawl up on the beach to sleep, believe it or not. They feel safe here because it is a protected beach. In the morning they will go back into the sea. They swim underwater, and have to surface every three hours to breathe! They can weigh nearly 200 pounds, and can live to be 80 years old. They were an endangered species because they used to be killed for meat, and to use their shell for some purpose. In the 1950's they were put on the endangered list, and since then they have been doing much better.
All the round "rocks" in the background are actually the shells of even more Honu sleeping on the beach. As you can see from the close-up photo, they really do look beat! And they are such magnificent creatures! I have never been this close to one before, and seeing them makes me want to learn more about them.
3 comments:
The top photo looks like this turtle may be close to 80 - tuckered out! Glad you got such a good close-up. Love the 2nd photo showing all the "round rocks"...I remember seeing a large turtle underwater while swimming at Kailua Beach on Oahu. H e was so close to shore and to us. betsey
Betsey: What was so wonderful about all this, was that we just stumbled upon it!
There were 26 of them. We counted.
Post a Comment