Releasing Endangered Baby Sea Turtles, and More in Acapulco

Our ship docked in Acapulco early in the morning where we had expansive views of the city from our stateroom deck.

But the best part of the day was yet to come; releasing endangered baby sea turtles at Camp Tortuguero Playa Larga. The excursion was a great opportunity to help local environmentalists and to get a close look at the little hatchlings.

The excursion took us on a bus ride out of town where we had some beautiful views of the city and surrounding area. We also saw first hand, the damage that was caused by Hurricane Otis in October, 2023.

As a side note, I noticed an abundance of Volkswagen Beetles. Apparently, manufacturing of them stopped in Germany in 1978, but continued in Mexico until 2003. The Mexican government gave tax breaks to VW beginning in 1988 which reduced the sales price by 20%, thus their ubiquitousness.

Okay, back to the turtles. Once we arrived at the sanctuary, we listened to a presentation about the work they do to help preserve sea turtles and got our first viewing of the hatchlings.

Here we learned about Olive Ridley sea turtles and were allowed to release the newly hatched (that morning!) babies into the ocean.

Olive Ridley sea turtles (their name in Spanish is Golfina) are the most abundant of the sea turtles and will grow to as much as 110 pounds (49.9 kilograms). Surprisingly, they are one of the smallest species of sea turtles. I wasn’t surprised to learn that their biggest predators are humans; sigh. We also learned that it is believed that they spend the first three years swimming in search of food and migrate thousands of miles every year. Mating begins at age 13 and they will return to the beach where they hatched to lay their eggs. They will lay up to 150 eggs (wow!) which have a 45 day incubation period.

After the short presentation, we lined up along the beach and were given with a coconut shell where a baby was placed, as we were not allowed to touch them. When instructed, we gently tipped our shells onto the sand so the hatchlings could head to the ocean.

There were close to 75 people on this excursion, but for some reason after the excitement of seeing the babies reach the water, a sanctuary employee tapped me on the shoulder and gave me another one to release. With many eyes on me, I gently placed her on the sand, wished her good luck and held my breath as I (and others around me) watched her scurry after her friends.

Rest assured that every turtle made it safely to the water. All the hatchlings were females; gender is determined by the depth of the burial of the eggs. The sanctuary volunteers alter the burial level of the freshly laid eggs to ensure they’re all female, thus ensuring repopulation efforts.

This excursion and crossing the Panama Canal were the absolute highlights of our cruise. Turtles are my favorite animal, so this was an absolute treat for me. As I mentioned in my previous posts, cruising is absolutely not for us, but there were a few highlights and this was definitely the best one.

Check out theTravelsketcher’s recent posts to read about our current activities.

As always, I would love to hear from you so please leave a comment if you would like.

Wishing you grand adventures,

Tricia