She drifted 500 yards offshore in the tropical warm eastern Pacific ocean off Ostional Beach. Only fifteen years old the olive ridley sea turtle was in a small country that Christopher Columbus had named "Costa Rica", the "rich coast" 500 years earlier.
The afternoon October rains had passed as she waited expectantly. In its final quarter now, the moon was having an unseen effect upon her.
A few yards away, another olive ridley sea turtle joined her, then a third, followed by a dozen, then hundreds, thousands, now tens of thousands. For countless years the moon has passed its timeless phases that affect this planet---and that, for more than 100,000,000 years has drawn marine turtles back to their ancestral homes.
Only a few months ago, this marine turtle was swimming way out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Indeed, in April an ocean tramper ship had passed her more than 2,500 miles offshore. On that same day, the hundreds of thousands now alongside her had been distributed over more than a million square kilometers. But, life is forever mysterious and this year was no exception.
Though food was plentiful far out in the Pacific, something stirred within her. She and hundreds of thousands like her felt the same need to return to Costa Rica. They had to go back to where they had arrived.
Now, as she waited in the soft moonlight, she was ready. Over the thousands of miles she had swum she had been bred by several different males in the clear tropical waters because, somehow, they, too, were being affected by something unseen, a force primeval. It was something so compelling that it had been bringing her species back to Ostional Beach since the days of dinosaurs.
In the tropical night this olive ridley sea turtle was waiting. She had somehow found to the very beach where she had hatched in 1995. We do not know how an olive ridley sea turtle finds the exact beach where it started life. There are only a few nesting beaches on earth and they are not very big. In fact Ostional Beach is only a few hundred meters long. Now part of Costa Rica's Ostional National Wildlife Refuge, it is almost certainly the most important olive ridley marine turtle nesting site in the world. Indeed, in 1995, the year this turtle hatched, perhaps as many as 500,000 female olive pacific sea turtles had come ashore to nest here in huge waves. These massive invasions are called "arribadas."
Unfortunately, our sea turtle's mother will not nest at Ostional this year. For 23 years, her mother had joined massive Ostional arribadas every year and she would have done so again except that she drowned in a shrimping net not fitted with an internationally required turtle escape device. Long-line fishermen killed thousands more in what is politely called "incidental catch" almost completely avoidable simply by using larger hooks. Untold thousands died needlessly by swallowing plastic bags.
But, neither our turtle nor the hundreds of thousands alongside her know none of this. As they gather, they are now so many that it seems one could almost walk on their backs for a mile or more. They don't realize they were on this planet long before there was a Tyrannosaurus Rex or that when they lay their eggs on this tiny wildlife refuge, men will lawfully raid their nests and take one million eggs in return for protecting the rest of the clutches and preserving the species. They only know one thing: Ostional is their beach.
Then, though no one knows why, it happens. It is almost as if the same quiet voice that instructed them to come and provided flawless directions to a tiny sand beach thousands of miles away, the same silent command that demanded they wait offshore, now tells them it is time to come ashore. As quietly as they first appeared offshore, as silently as they gathered for days and weeks, their patience has been rewarded. They begin to come to the beach. A single olive ridley marine turtle is followed by a second, then another and another. Soon there are hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands---even more than that. All on a particular little beach. They come in increasing numbers all night. More arrive in the day. All day, day after day. It is the magnificent Ostional Arribada of Costa Rica. As timeless as the moon itself, it is the spectacular reaffirmation of life itself.
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