"Red sky at morning, sailors take warning," the old proverb admonishes. Such a pity, as the red skies of morning are the most beautiful by far. This dawn, I awake, not because my alarm clock tells me to -- for it is hundreds of miles away -- but because it is no longer night time. A new day has arrived, and with it come many responsibilities. Pedro calls to me from outside my tent in Spanish -- "Hurry up and get out here!" He's probably been up for an hour. Still drowsy, I pull myself out of my bedroll and open the tent flaps, wincing at the too-bright morning sky. On the beach, there is little to shield my eyes from the sun. The sand is still cool beneath my toes, though I know it will soon heat up on this July morning in Mexico.

Hurriedly, I strap on my shoes, grab my cap, then climb onto Pedro's all-terrain vehicle behind him. The engine jumps to attention; then we're on our way.

The wind whips through my hair, sending it each and every way, like the tangled root system of a tree. I dread pulling a brush through it. My cap flies off my head, but I catch it in midair, replacing it bill-back so it won't catch the wind.

For two miles we travel, seeing no other sign of life in the fresh morning sand. Smoothed by the waves and night breeze, any recent tracks would be evident, and we scour the terrain with our eyes, searching, hoping.

Then, up ahead, we see something. Not the tracks we had searched for, but something most unusual.

"¡Delfîn!" I call to Pedro.

He nods.

It is not actually a dolphin, as I realize, but a small whale, words that my mouth cannot find with my broken Spanish tongue.

The whale has beached itself, thrown itself onto the sand. We know immediately that its chances are slim, as are those of any beached whale. I radio back to camp for help.

Soon, three of our assistants arrive, bringing with them cameras and tools to measure our delfîn. We continually pour water over it to protect its skin from sun damage and keep it moist and healthy. The whale is only twelve feet long, small by whale standards, but still enormous to us.

With the help of the incoming tide, we gently ease the whale back into the water, better suited to support its weight than the sand. The whale has some signs of injuries, but only superficial ones -- none so life-threatening as to cause it to beach itself. Pedro notices mucus around the blowhole, a common sign of a cold or infection. In the water, we are capable of moving the whale. We guide it out, away from the shore, where the currents can aid it if it chooses to swim again.

It doesn't.

Repeatedly, we move the whale away from the shore, but again and again, it returns. Our assistant Raûl points to the blue water near the horizon. "If we could swim him out there, to where it is blue, he would be happy and wouldn't want to return," he says in Spanish. Seeing the azure he points to, some secret land of mermaids and dolphins, I agree: "If we could swim out there, I wouldn't want to return either," I reply.

But there is little we can do. This is the way of things. Disheartened, Pedro and I return to the shore, leaving our assistants to do what they can for the whale. We were unable to save this life, but we cannot give up hope. The whale is not even a part of our real mission.

Riding down the beach again, we see the cows grouped around a large piece of driftwood. In a fit of curiosity, I had once asked Pedro why there were cows on the beach. They were hungry for salt, he told me, so they traveled down from their farms to lick the driftwood. Soon, they would become thirsty, and return home. We see them there often. Pedro yells a greeting at the cows, who only look at us disinterestedly and return to their driftwood.

Then, finally, just as I am about to lose hope, I spot the telltale tracks. To the uninitiated, they look something like the marks of a broom, where flippers have swept sand aside to move up the shore. Indeed, as my eyes follow the tracks up the beach, I see her, still moving. "Ridley!" Pedro has seen her too. Because she has not settled yet, we stop and keep our distance. Scaring her might cause her to return to the sea, and her whole clutch of eggs could be lost. Slowly, she pulls herself up the beach, then, finding a suitable location, starts digging her nest.

	That task completed, she settles into a trance and begins laying eggs. Now it is safe for us to approach. We quietly walk behind the large sea turtle. Pedro carefully picks up each egg as it is laid and places it gently in a large burlap sack. We are lucky. If we had not found her, a raccoon or coyote could have found the nest, and the whole brood would have been devoured.
Unaware of our presence, the ridley finishes laying her eggs -- nearly one hundred of them -- and fills in her nest before heading back out to the sea.

 

Carrying our precious cargo, we return to the all-terrain vehicle and head back for camp. When we arrive, we learn that the whale we found has died. We are not especially surprised. There is little time to dwell on the death of that creature, though, when we still must do so much work to save others. Our tiny charges must be replanted into the ground, like acorns that grow to mighty trees. We dig special corralitos for the eggs, designed not only to protect them from predators like raccoons and ghost crabs, but to contain them when they hatch. As we dig, we notice that a nearby nest is ripe. A small funnel of sand has formed, signaling that the eggs inside have been burst. The baby turtles can dig themselves out, and they are equipped with an yolksac to provide sustenance and oxygen until they do so, but we help them anyway. When a species is as critically endangered as the Kemp's ridley, we must do everything we can to save each and every life.

Rachel with sea turtle hatchling, May 1995

From the nest emerge tiny, half-dollar sized hatchlings. These we collect in a dishpan. Dusk approaches. Left on their own, these hatchlings choose dusk to crawl out into the surf. However, our protected turtles are given a few days to gain strength and consume their unwieldy yolksacs before we release them into the Gulf.

For another group of hatchlings, that time has arrived. With only the light of the moon to guide us, we scatter the tiny ridleys along the shore. We must change the location of our release every evening so that seagulls and sharks do not figure out where to go for an easy meal. One by one, the hatchlings are placed upon the sand, facing the moon and the sea.
	Some learn quickly and move directly to the water, where they take float, camouflaging themselves in the sargassum. Others are slower, moving in the wrong direction, toward the dunes. These we must gently correct and guide toward the ocean. Some have not made it this far.

Realistically, we know, that only one out of one hundred of these turtles will grow to maturity and reproduce. Yet we also know that without our intervention, the survival rate would be closer to one out of one thousand. We continue what we do for the sake of that one percent that will make it to adulthood. We are slowly beginning to see a rebound in the population of the Kemp's ridley sea turtle, but the livelihood of the species is still threatened by shrimpers who inadvertently catch the turtles in their nets.

 

The nests are also prey not only to animals, but to poor Mexican villagers who steal the turtle eggs to sell on the black market -- an unfortunate legend tells that eating turtle eggs raw will increase a man's virility. In addition to working with the turtles, we work to educate shrimpers and villagers, in hope that they will someday help us in our battle to save the ridleys.

Night has fallen on this Mexican beach. The stars shine brightly here away from civilization. In the cool breeze, I gaze at them and spot Ursa major. Sleepiness hits me like a wave. I tuck myself into my bedroll and go to sleep, preparing to wake at the next dawn.