A turtle in the flotsam
On Thursday we crossed the bay again destined for an anchorage near the Old Point Comfort Marina at Fort Monroe, a one-time military base that is now part of Hampton. It should have been a four-and-one-half hour trip, but just before we reached the entrance to Hampton Roads we spotted something odd in the water and realized it was a turtle floating sideways. It seemed unable to right itself and would struggle to get its head above water every few minutes to breathe. It couldn't swim properly and was drifting away from Hampton Roads into the bay with the current as the tide went out.
It was clearly in distress. Robert said he thought it was a young loggerhead and called the Coast Guard to report it. The Coast Guard told him they would contact what Robert understood to be the Virginia Institute of Marine Science and asked if we could continue circling the turtle and keep it in sight. Robert said we would and a few minutes later he got a call from the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center's Stranding Response Team.
Robert agreed that we would keep circling while efforts were made to mount a rescue. We circled the turtle for an hour and 30 minutes from the time we spotted it until we received a call from a Coast Guard patrol craft letting us know they were on the way to pick it up.
I couldn't imagine how they were going to get the turtle, which had to weigh about 100 pounds into the craft, but with great maneuvering by Boatswain's Mate Joseph D'Amico, Seaman Brittany Reagle and Seaman Travis Williams had pulled it aboard in less than 10 minutes after they arrived. Despite whatever injury or illness it suffered, the turtle put up quite a struggle.
The Coast Guard crew said they couldn't tell what was wrong with it, but were taking it to the stranding team at the Virginia Aquarium. I talked to Stranding Response Manager Maggie Lynott at the aquarium after they headed in and she said I can call to check on the turtle.
The turtle drifted 2.6 nautical miles from the time we spotted it at about 2 p.m. until the Coast Guard picked it up at 3:50 p.m.
Robert created the map of how far the turtle drifted by superimposing the boat's track on Google maps. To my dismay, while we were circling the turtle my Nikon developed some sort of problem and stopped focusing so I was left to photograph the rescue with a point-and-shoot. The photos don't do it justice, but I've posted them anyway.
Virginia Aquarium Stranding Response Team