Rescued: Wading for You
Updated: Feb 8, 2023
Fall 2011: Boxes. The end of one chapter, the start of another. Precious cargo.
I drop a stack of leaning ones when, out of the corner of my eye, I see a blur that snaps me up.
Hang on a sec, I tell my shift mate helping me load a storage unit on Chicago’s north side.
Three westies trot merrily alongside a woman just taking her time. This is so much more interesting than forty pounds of fancy granola bars in my arms. I run over not even trying to keep my cool.
Can I say hi to your pups?
Only two of them are mine. You’re a westie person too, huh?
And then, a string of words that will change every aspect of my next decade.
This guy? I’m just fostering him till he finds a home.
I am stunned. I know he belongs with me, yet I spend the entire ninety minute train ride to my parents’ house picking out the perfect words to over-explain this news that I have found “the one” … never mind that I should be focusing on getting a real job post graduation. Responsibilities. Dad stares down at his plate of lasagna, aggressively piling it on his fork. Silence. Followed by the big parental disappointment sigh. Oh Kate. I’m just not so sure. When will you have the time? This one, though, I already know. He’s slower than the others. Middle aged. Hangs back. What happened? How did you land here? Despite accepting that I will have no answers, something about this intersection feels very, very right.
Fall 2022: More boxes. All previously filled with bananas.
The doors whisk open and that familiar briney air wafts down my nose into my lungs making me feel at home.
Our feet are toasty from space heaters lining the concrete corridor, but they’re not meant for us. We anticipate our VIPs arriving any minute now, our manager announces looking at her watch.
Suddenly, I am surrounded by dozens of cardboard containers. Applause rings out. They’re here.
One is plopped to my left, the box’s center cutout revealing a motionless jagged object gently propped on a cheetah print beach towel. Something has chomped on his backside leaving a jarring semicircle - like a kid taking a bite out of a chocolate chip cookie.
There he is. One of several of our new sea turtle patients. He’s so, so little. I study his graphite gray back and bumpy little spine and his little wrinkly, fatigued eyelids.
SNAP.
No-time-to-overthink- just-do-as-you’ve-been-taught-
and-don’t-mess-it-up I instruct myself. Responsibilities.
But in the back of my mind I still wonder: just what did happen to you?
A fellow volunteer teaches me how to gently swathe off the identification number painted on his shell (called a carapace) and replace it with a new one for this next “in between” stage.
It’s a synchronized march upstairs with each of these vulnerable, stunning beauties – always one hand on the bottom, one on top – to a former dolphin pool turned sea turtle rehabilitation sanctuary. Staff and volunteers have spent countless hours preparing for this day and it shows: medical equipment and sterile supplies are neatly labeled and organized. New pool dividers carefully constructed by hand from PVC piping and white lattice. Everything is tailored to encourage a proper fit.
It’s been a long week for these dozens of endangered juveniles, a mix of green sea turtles and Kemp’s ridley, the most endangered type. Hundreds wash up stranded along the beaches of Cape Cod this time of year having migrated and feasted along the eastern coast. But it’s the curvy hook of Massachusetts that causes confusion. It’s in their blood to know to head back down south for the winter, except, swim south and - bump! There’s land there! Swim back east and bump - land there too! All as the water gets colder, too cold for these warm water majesties.
They stop swimming, stop eating. Many get pneumonia and become dehydrated. Others suffer wounds to their heads, flippers and carapace from being tossed and turned in the surf, whacked by boat propellers or feasted upon by predators. They are what’s known as “cold-stunned.”
Those who wash up are rescued, triaged to numerous rehab facilities across America – our aquarium being one of them with ample space for patients. And volunteers, like me.
Exam stations are dotted along the pool’s edge, heart beats listened to, breathing rates noted, swim abilities recorded. Document, document, document.
I stretch a tape measure across carapace after carapace, learning how to gently hold their delicate front flippers in place. They remind me of angel wings the way they flap and scoop the air. I look up and see a fiery sunset on display through the porthole in front of me. Ferg is showing his approval, all right.
Namesakes The week my pup is scheduled to come home, I come down with food poisoning. While I am supposed to be proving my independence and utter capability, I am left with Mom and Dad nursing me back to health just in time to welcome… MARIANO? Why, oh why, would one give a royal Scot an Italian grocery store’s name? I run down internet searches of sturdy, Scottish sounding names…. Clyde. Magnus. William Wallace. Finnegan. FERGUSON. Sir Ferguson. To name, to re-name, is to breathe new life into old or unknown stories. It’s why every year, the cohort of rescued sea turtles are given a thematic name. And this year, ever so appropriately, they are each named after beaches.
Once a week, I count Waikiki’s breaths, calmly focusing on a single object during five minute incremental rounds. There is something stabilizing and familiar about this: not totally dissimilar to meditation.
We feed La Jolla and Juno shrimp, squid and fish. And later, sink a romaine lettuce buffet to the pool’s bottom. Greens for the greens, chomp chomp.
I’m on the receiving end as six of us lift and support 90-pound Glockenspiel from his tank, a loggerhead rescued earlier in the year. He is undeniably strong and I realize I’m holding a dinosaur. I watch him crane his Ferg-sized head, studded in gorgeous auburn scales. I’m touching solid gold history. My heart beats a little faster. Dunked
And then, we wade. Let me just say that pulling on a pair of chest waders is easier than it looks. But I do it – I think – and hop in until salt water rises to my waist. Tighten your straps, the volunteer says. But the drawstring around my chest is already taught so I don’t really do anything. It feels like blood pressure cuffs have been slipped over both of my shins.
A little bump behind my right leg. A turtle kiss? Spatial awareness is hard for both of us when we’re new around these parts. Some are flying through the water past me, others peacefully resting on the pool’s bottom.
They teach me how to gently use a net to scoop up a turtle, grasp its sides and bring him to the pool’s edge for treatment. I am so focused on where my hands are, careful not to step on anyone that when I reach down to pick up the net all I feel is a big whoooooooosh from my armpit to belly button all the way down soaking my socks. Straps? Ah, she meant tighten my shoulder straps.
I have become my own aquarium. But my job is to be deep in salt water with the turtles so I don’t say anything and grin and bear and kind of love being wet because how many can say they get to wade with nature’s royalty every week?
I pull off my waders before trading them for boots. Our manager catches wind and sees I am dyed as a yin yang sign: left side dry, right side sopping wet. She tosses me a box of dry scrubs beneath the bathroom stall and I crack myself up the entire time I change, for I have been baptized by turtles.
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