This is a story I wrote in 2018 that I wanted to post. I was still in a lower class at the time so there might be some mistakes in the writing of the story. It was a task which had to be about the use of plastic in the world, and it could be any kind of text we liked, and we had 1hour 30min to complete it, and I decided to write a story.
We were in a car on our way to the beach, because leatherback turtles were found and are expected to have eaten plastic and have it stuck around their body. Leatherback turtles are one of the biggest sea turtle kind. They can grow up to 2.4 meters long.
I asked,“does anyone know how big these are.”
We were with 3 of us in the car. Even though it was more like a bus to fit the turtles in. The others in the ‘car’ are called James and Faith. I am the youngest of the three. I am 17 years old. James is 22 and Faith is 20. We all met each other at the turtle centre. James owns the place but since we are only with 3 he has to come along to help us out. Usually about 50 people join this group. We don’t get paid either, since it is voluntary work. I was just on holiday but wanted to do something there, so I decided to go and work for a sea turtle saving group called SEE turtles.
James said,”They are about 1 year and one of them is about 2 years old, so they are not very big yet. But they’ll grow while they’re at our place dude.”
For some weird reason that I never understood he always said dude after he finished talking, and occasionally also in the middle of his sentence, even though it didn’t make sence. We were finally at the beach and I could straight away see the turtles.
Faith said,”it is very dangerous for them to be so close to the shore. I hope they’re still alright. Anyone can come right up to them.”
Faith is the caring person of the group. Whenever anything happens she is the one to go to. She’ll always be there for you when you need to. But she’s also very shy
She doesn’t talk to anyone who she has never heard of or seen before. So she does talk to us and to her family. But me and James always have to talk to the people who want to adopt an animal who is in danger.
We got out of the car and we went towards the turtles. They were stranded on the shore. You could see they were scared. One of them couldn’t move their legs because there was plastic around his front fins. When we walked up to them . They seemed to not to be too big.
James said, “We’ll all go to a different one, Garret dude, you go to one closest to us. I’ll take the big one furthest away and Faith you take the one on the right, dudette”
I had to laugh when he said dudette. we all went towards the turtles
When we were back together, I asked, “should we straight away bring them to the car or first see if we can set them free.”
Faith said,”I’ll first check if they are okay and if they ate plastic, but to do so we will have to take them with us ,so we’ll just have to try lifting them up one by one. We’ll use the mats for them to lay on.”
James said, “that’s not a good idea dude, they are too heavy to lift with the three of us, we should go and ask people on the shore to help us lift them up. We’ll need at least 1 or 2 more people to help lift them up Dude.”
We managed to find people to help us lift them up and bring them to the car. We straight away went back to the rescue centre. We walked in and the first thing you see is a reception. People could come into the building and adopt a sea turtle. This meant they could choose the names and they get to release the turtles. We went back and we managed to get the people behind the reception who only work 2 days in the week to help us lift them to the centre where we kept them. We all separated them and we took of all the plastic on their body. Then one by one we scanned them and we realised that one of them, which was the one I was going to take care of had buoyancy disorder which mean that the turtle has eaten something that makes him float to the top of the water when swimming which is dangerous because they can get hit by ships and fishing nets easier. Faith called a specialised doctor who operates them to have a look at him, and see what he could do.
While the docter was on the way I asked James, “is there any way I can adopt the turtle I take care of.”
He said, “you can, but you will have to pay for it like other people at the reception dude.”
So I walked down because I had to wait for the doctor, but while doing this I went to the reception and payed them the money. I decided to call the turtle eco because I found that it fit with him. I adopted the turtle who had Buoyancy because that means we had to take care of him longer and I had to take care if him anyway so it didn’t make a difference. But I found this turtle special, it is the first turtle I found with Buoyancy, and I found it cool to find a turtle with it but I of course felt bad for it as well. 5 minutes later the doctor came and took care of all the turtles. He said that it would take a bit more time for eco to get better.
A month later the other two turtles who were called Buddy and Cora got released, but Eco had to stay with us, he just got better but he still has to get back used to living in the wild. It went really fast with Buddy and Cora. They grew a lot in a short time. The families who adopted them came and got to release them. The turtles straight away jumped in the water and swam away. I spend a lot of time teaching Eco how to take care of himself in the wild. For some reason he also liked to swim after objects I threw in the water and brings it back. But it is funny that he doesn’t do this with plastic, he already swims far away from it. I’ve never seen a turtle that so easily sees the difference between food, a toy and plastic. He is just like a dog with his sticks. Another month later Eco was getting released. I petted him on his right fin and on his head. Usually turtles would trie to bite but Eco didn’t we went onto the same boat as for Buddy and Cora. On our way where we wanted to release them there was quite a lot of thrash so we first tried to get all the thrash which was mainly plastic out of the water. We also found a sick bird which are also animals we take care for. Mainly sea turtles and birds but rarely we also get seals. Then I released him. Eco first swam after the boat which showed what a connection we shared after a very short time.
I said, “hey James, you think it would be a good idea to first go around the area and try to clean as much plastic out of the water as possible.”
James nodded. Then he said,”dude.”
I was laughing. He doesn’t only say dude at the end of his sentence but to girls he said dudette and he also said dude and dudette after he nodded and probably also after he nodded no. We went around the area and we cleaned the area. I was asking myself why people think it is a good idea to throw trash on the ground. Plastic is even worse. It doesn’t only get to the water easily but it also takes a long time to desolve. I think it is the dumbest thing to throw away.
After 2 months more of working there I was already staying in the country for to long enough, and I still needed to finish school so I was going to have to rush. I went back to England and on my way back I was thinking of all the fun I had on this holiday. With the new friends I made, with Faith and James. I was grateful for the opportunity, which was visiting this awesome place.
Sources I used when writing this:
Christian Mulder's Blog 