Stars, Sails - the Parallax View

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Hope Town and Green Sea Turtles

11 July 2012 | Hope Town, Elbow Cay, Abacos
Heather / rainy and 87 / SE 12
Hope Town lighthouse astern of our mooring
Hope Town lighthouse astern of our mooring

[UPDATE Sun 15 July: added a whole lot of pictures and a bit of text to "Little Harbour after 17 years" entry.]

Got into Hope Town, Elbow Cay, Abacos yesterday after a short trip from Little Harbour. Because of power usage, Derek hates to run the engines when we are in harbor, and we had to run the engines anyway, so we motorsailed, engines plus jib, at 6.3 kts, broad reaching in maybe 8 kts breeze. But 8 kts abeam is no breeze at all in our enclosed (at the sides) cockpit, so I rigged a windscoop for the helm chair... it mostly obscured the same part of the view that the jib and the mast obscure anyway...

"wind scoop for helm chair?"

Halfway there, we stopped and snorkeled at Sandy Cay, which is a marine park with great snorkeling along a small wall with moorings.
Derek and Grant still snorkeling after Mom has returned to boat
Derek and Grant still snorkeling after Mom has returned to boat

Derek dropped into the water first to check it out and saw a green turtle
Green Turtle image from NOAA
Green turtle image from NOAA
and a sting ray before Grant and I got into the water -- we all saw a lot of fish afterward. There was a strong current: apparently you do not want to snorkel that reef on any kind of rising tide, but wait for falling. We were very close to high tide, but the current was strong from SE to NW. Turns out the moorings there are meant for smaller vessels, only up to 24' -- so it's better to anchor off the moorings in 20' than to pick one up and trust your boat to polypropylene line 50' upwind of rocks awash. This catamaran did that, so you can see about how far from the line of buoys they were anchored:
Catamaran anchored near buoys at Sandy Cay coral garden
Catamaran anchored near buoys at Sandy Cay coral garden

The visual navigation rules that people usually use are OK in the Abacos, but do keep in mind that turtle grass is dark so grass beds can look deeper than they are. Nonetheless, if you see an almost-white line of bright turquoise, that's less than 3' deep:
shallow patch in the distance

Resumed our trip to Hope Town, and arrived without trouble in sunny, breezy conditions -- a lovely day! Hope Town is a lot more developed than it was when we were here 17 years ago, but it's "pretty" development - pastel houses with white roofs and white trim, palm trees lining the harbor, many pretty touches, and docks galore for the visitors to come ashore. Here is the first thing you see as you enter the harbor - a welcome sign with a speed limit and a lovely pastel house on Eagle Rock:
House on Eagle Rock, Hope Town harbor mouth
House on Eagle Rock, Hope Town harbor mouth

Hope Town Marina across the harbor
Hope Town Marina across the harbor

They still have an Albury Ferry service to Marsh Harbour, and even the boat is still named "Donnie," although now it's the Donnie VII!
Donnie VII Albury ferry in Hope Town harbor
Donnie VII Albury ferry in Hope Town harbor

It reminds me a little of Pusser's Landing at the west end of Tortola, BVI. The harbor is a "holding tank area," so they are trying to keep their enclosed waters clean, too -- and we saw three small (less than 24") green turtles in the water yesterday.

Seventeen years ago, our introduction to Hope Town was a little more traumatic. We loved the place, but the first thing we saw on coming ashore was four men carrying a really large (maybe 5' shell length) live green turtle by its flippers -- clearly fishermen with their catch. The local restaurants offered turtle soup. Turtle harvesting has become illegal in the Bahamas in the intervening time, because the green sea turtle is an endangered species in some areas and threatened in others.

Picked up a mooring, there are many moorings and almost no anchoring spots in this harbor. Ours was right behind a sweet little houseboat owned by a guy who does clothing based in Green Turtle Cay. He bought it as a one-story houseboat and totally redid it:
StrandedNaked.Com houseboat
He brought his houseboat to Hope Town for the regatta last week, and hosted a party aboard

This was Bahamian Independence Day (July 10th), so stores were closed.
What happened to the Harbour View Grocery? They are closed!
What happened to the Harbour View Grocery? They are closed! Ahhhh!

However, restaurants were open, and laughter and music drifted across the evening water with the breeze. We lazed around the boat and had a nice dinner from the stores we had left from Spanish Wells. Around 10 pm, then again at 2 a.m., the skies opened up. There was more rain this morning, and this afternoon, although the middle of the day was sunny, hot and breezy. We walked along the streets staying in the tree shadows when possible: one of the trees was a breadfruit brought to this island by Captain Bligh (it's near the museum -- have they mentioned they are air conditioned? :-)

This morning, Derek and I went ashore to scope out groceries and laundry, and see about taking a dive trip with Grant. Harbour View Grocery has a good selection, some of their prices are higher than Vernon's Grocery (raw sugar), some are lower (butter). The laundry that used to be behind them is no longer in business -- now you have to go to the marina! We had lunch at Harbour's Edge restaurant, which was tasty. It's the big mint-green building with white trim that's sort of sideways with respect to the harbor -- that's to allow them to catch the prevailing breeze on their deck. Their breezy deck and fresh fish were wonderful in the hot midday!

When we got back to the HV Grocery, around 1 pm, they were closed from 12-2 for lunch. Oh well. We picked up raw sugar at Vernon's. Vernon is a great baker, his breads are compelling and his key lime pies make locals and visiting sailors alike drool and pay :-) This is a picture of him from a local blog (a few years ago):
Vernon in his store c. 2007
Vernon in his store c. 2007 (Photo by Meakin Hoffer, on Sam Hoffer's Abaco memoir site)

Vernon was complaining to some friends about the law against taking green turtles. Like every other Bahamian over the age of 25, he grew up being able to catch and eat turtle, of course: the law is relatively new.
"It's terrible! Turtles eat the baby conch, you know!"
"No, really?"
"Yes! My son went out to a conch bed he knows about, and there were turtles all over the place, but no conch."
"That's terrible!"
"Yes, the turtles breed faster than the conch, so we should be able to take them since we can take conch. You shouldn't go messing with the balance of nature with laws like that."
"No, the balance of nature, that's right."

That's weird, it takes green turtles 20 years at the very least to reach sexual maturity, while a conch can do it in four. I think Vernon may be letting his love of turtle soup color his perceptions of breeding rates.

Also, apparently Bahamians in boats are an integral part of the turtle-conch food chain, the legislators mustn't have realized removing human predation would mess with "the balance of nature."

Now, conch love to hang out in sea grass beds. That's where they are usually to be found. That grass is also called "turtle grass," and I had always been told that was because the turtles ate the grass. But Vernon has juvenile turtles eating conch? Figuring I should educate myself rather than condemn Vernon for making up stuff that would justify his taste for turtle soup, I did a little internet research:
"Unlike other marine turtles, adult Green Sea Turtles are nearly exclusively herbivorous, primarily eating sea grasses such as Turtle Grass (Thalassia Testudinum) and Manatee Grass (Syringodiumm Filiforme) or Marine Algae.

Conversely, the young are usually omnivorous, enjoying jellyfish, sponges, and mollusks."

Well, so if we're talking about young sea turtles eating mollusks, that sounds at least promising for Vernon's POV... continuing the research:

"The green sea turtle, chelonia mydas, is slow-growing and is endangered in the USA and Mexico. Elsewhere (as in the Bahamas) it is "threatened." Based on growth rate studies of wild green turtles, the sexual maturity range is 20-50 years of age. It is assumed that post-hatchling, pelagic-stage green turtles are omnivorous, but there are no data on diet from this age class. It is known that once green turtles shift to benthic feeding grounds they are herbivores. They feed on both seagrasses and algae.

A population of juvenile green turtles forage as herbivores in the central Indian River Lagoon, near Sebastian, Florida, and along the near-shore Sabelleriid worm reefs off Indian River County, Florida."

Not looking so good for Vernon's soup dreams.

Of course, hungry juvenile green turtles will take conch if fed loose conch meat by hand, or small crabs or cuttlefish the same way. And there are lots of "popularizing" sites, like beautifulocean.com, that assert the omnivorous escapades of the young turtles, though: "Omnivorous juvenile: Young green turtles also eat invertebrates, such as small jellyfish, snails and crabs, but will become vegetarians as they grow into adults." They might find a conch tough to handle. Adult humans have trouble breaking them open with hammers!

Now to narrow the search. I found that juvenile chelonia mydas dietary habits are a hot research field, and in 2006 there was a "first study to determine juvenile green sea turtle diet in tropical feeding grounds." Sounds right. Here's the abstract:

We offer the first published description of the feeding choices made by juvenile green turtles on a tropical feeding ground, in this case a reef flat environment. We collected 85 lavage samples from 76 turtles and compared the food eaten to the food resources available. Resampling of some individuals enabled us to gain preliminary insights into diet switching by juvenile turtles. The area of the reef flat at Green Island, Queensland, Australia, had similar proportions of coverage by seagrasses (52%) and by algae (48%). Seven species of seagrass and at least 26 species of algae were identified. The dominant seagrasses, on an area basis, were Cymodocea sp. (29.7%), Halodule sp. (11.1%), Thalassia sp. (6.4%) and Syringodium sp. (4.5%). The most dominant algae were Halimeda spp. (10.2%). and Galaxaura sp. (7.25%). Most juvenile green turtles ate primarily seagrass, but some individuals ate predominantly algae. The turtles showed clear preferences for the seagrass Thalassia hemprichii and the algae Gracilaria spp., Gelidiella sp., Hypnea spp. despite their low abundance in many cases. Ways to improve our understanding of preferences and possible diet switching, and potential factors affecting them, are discussed. [source: http://eprints.jcu.edu.au/3813/]

Wait, all these green turtle juvies were herbivorous???! What gives?

Could it be that Australian chelonia mydas juveniles make different dietary choices than Atlantic chelonia mydas juveniles?

Well, published in 2011, a study of young sea turtles in the southwestern Atlantic showed that while young turtles might accidentally ingest shells, they are overwhelmingly fond of turtle grass: less than 2.4% of the stomach contents were of animal origin. Unfortunately nearly 70% of the young turtles had swallowed something manmade, plastic predominating.
[source: http://www.int-res.com/articles/esr_oa/n013p131.pdf]

So what is the origin of this "conch eating green turtle" idea? Adult Loggerhead turtles will crunch a conch in a minute. They're also endangered. As one former turtle fisherman said, "They are dumb! They are so dumb that they are easy to catch, that's why they are endangered!"

Maybe Vernon was thinking of a little green turtle taking a piece of conch offered by hand as meaning that they would crunch through a conch shell in the wild to get some? Maybe seeing a lot of turtles over a turtle grass bed shouldn't cause his son to conclude that the small turtles are eating the conch?
Comments
Vessel Name: Parallax
Vessel Make/Model: 37' Prout Snowgoose (1982)
Hailing Port: Pensacola
Crew: Derek, Heather and Grant
About:
Two astronomers, looking for variable stars and adventure. After cruising the Caribbean aboard S/V Paradox for 18 months in the early 90s, the crew swallowed the anchor and had a child, always planning their next Great Adventure: cruising under sail with Grant, showing him the world. [...]
Extra:
We knew that if we ever got a catamaran, we'd want a name to celebrate her twin-hulledness. Parallax is seeing the same thing from two slightly different points of view, which with our two eyes is what gives humans our depth perception. It's also a good metaphor for one of the benefits of marriage. [...]

S/V Parallax

Who: Derek, Heather and Grant
Port: Pensacola