A chance discovery

This is my first blog. I will be learning as I go along. Anyway, my blog is about turtles. Specifically sea turtles. To be honest, I never really gave much thought to sea turtles. I did dive with some in Hawaii many years ago, and every time I read about an oil spill, pollution, or some freak disaster that affects sea life, I get weepy and emotional when I see these wonderful creatures dying on beaches. My perspective on sea turtles has changed. Big time.  And it happened on a remote beach in the Jalisco province of Mexico. My boyfriend and I were holidaying in Puerto Vallarta, and just after New Years day we decided to get a hire car and go exploring.  After looking at one of those hotel booklet maps that had pictures and some highlighted roads, we thought hey, let's go south. After trundling along on the main highway we turned off at a town called Tuito. We then continued on through some awesome twisty roads, alot of gravel and dirt, and ended up at Villa del Mar. Not much to see in the village we decided to try and find a place for lunch and had another squint at the map. We saw this place: http://www.elcielito.com.mx/ and thought, what the hell..looks good. And it was lovely. Since it was getting late in the day, we decided to stay overnight in one of the cabanas. That evening we were told that a local resident called Casimiro rescues and releases baby Olive Ridleys on the seashore. At around 10:00 PM my boyfriend came running up the beach, up the stairs, and charged into the cabana. There were baby turtles being released on the beach and if I got my arse in gear, I could see them. I flew down the stairs, almost wiping out, and charged onto the beach. That night I got to release my first baby turtle. This is what they look like:

I was over the moon. My boyfriend, Michael, who is a fisheries biologist, ended up spending alot of time with Casimiro, the local turtle advocate. He learned that Casi is the only person on this beach that does this. And he does it alone.