Cayo Largo

21° 37 N 081° 33 W

Page 1 of 1

15 December 2000 - 21 December 2000


TURTLE FARM:

Today, 20 December 2000, at 2.00pm I went to visit my friend, Octavio, at the Turtle Farm. On the way there, I stopped at the old jetty with a bucket and net and caught some Upside-down jelly fish, these were then fed one by one to the Hawksbill Turtles. The Hawksbill Turtles lower jaw has a single point, the top jaw is cleft to accommodate it, this is used when the turtles are eating jelly fish. The turtles spread out their two back flippers and sit at the bottom of the pool slowly eating the jelly fish. Once the turtles take a bite of the jelly fish and are busy chewing it, the other part of the jelly fish swims away with a triangular shaped bite out of it. Octavio went to the bar to get a small pizza, while he was gone he left me to look after the turtles. No sooner had he left when two people came to see the turtles, I showed them around all the pools. First I showed them the biggest pool which had a female GreenbackTurtle, its shell is about 1.2 meters long. I put my hand in the water and splashed it around, it shot across to the side of the pool where I was, the people then touched its neck and shell carefully not to get bitten. Then we moved on to the tank with the baby Green Back Turtles which were about 10cm long and about 5cm wide. There was one Albino turtle which was separate from the others, the Albino swam slowly, its pink eyes looking for bits of food. The last tank had two teenaged Green Back Turtles, the one stretched out its neck so I could tickle it and the other climbed over it so it could also get some attention.
Liz

Liz found this little turtle farm. They release hundreds of 
turtles into the wild every year. Behind her stands Octavio, who used to 
work as a bureaucrat for the government. He must have been pretty high up as 
only the "favourites" get jobs close to the tourists. You have to be 
uncorruptable you see. Anyway here he is explaining the benefits of 
turtleatarian socialism to a few turistas.


Liz, Octavio and Mike, get into feeding the Green and 
Hawkesbill's

We also saw a true albino green trurtle, no he was a white 
green turtle, no not a GREEN green, a white green, ok a pink 
eyed white green turtle GOT IT!!

These are Hawkesbills. 
 

    

This is a view of shore from the marina at Cayo Largo.      The Quaint little grocery store, where only the tourists got things
that the normal man in the street dreams of.