The world according to me....

Sometimes, working on tropical nesting beaches is not all milk and honey. Accidental capture of sea turtles are common in the coastal waters near the French Guiana and Suriname border, and occasionally dead turtles end up washing up onto the nesting beach. Decomposing leatherback carcasses on the nesting beach create amazingly powerful and noxious smells, hence everyone in the area, including local villagers, tourists and fieldworkers wanted the turtles to be disposed of. In 2001, while working on Awala-Yalimapo beach in the Réserve Naturelle de l'Amana in French Guiana, I somehow ended up helping out with the dead leatherbacks that occasionally washed ashore. The most direct method was to use a boat to pull them off the beach and out to the middle of the Mana/Maroni estuary. It was always a team effort, with several people putting the ropes around the turtles on the beach, and a few others on the boat taking out individual turtles to be released to the currents. I was lucky to be out in the boat with Thierry Henri (nicknamed Bara), who was one of the guards of the réserve naturelle and best boat pilot I have ever met. Once in position in the estuary, I would drag the turtle as close as possible before cutting the rope, and it was always an acrobatic exercise with the boat, since nobody wanted to be downwind of the floating turtle. With the ropes cut, we all hoped that the outbound current would take them out to sea where they would continue to decompose and be eaten by other organisms.

Only later did I learn that sometimes the currents did mischievous things with the dead turtles. At least once (and probably more often than that), a dead turtle we released went straight across the estuary and ended up on Baboensanti beach, in Suriname, where Edo Goverse and Maartje Hilterman were monitoring nesting turtles. Unfortunately for them, they did not have an easily accessible boat to drag the turtle away, so they had to endure the smell of the decomposing turtle for several weeks. I promised myself to always buy Edo and Maartje a beer whenever I saw in the future. So far, I have only had once chance to do this (in Cayenne), but more opportunities are on the horizon (in Malaysia).

By the way, Bara is also an excellent cook. In fact, all the guards of the Réserve Naturelle de l'Amana are excellent cooks (even Marion!).

Thanks to Stephanie Kamel for taking this picture.