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 News from Around Banderas Bay | December 2005 
Call out the Marines!
 latitude38.com
| | There were 95 eggs in all. | 
| | Armed marines came to protect the turtle eggs. | 
| | What was mama turtle thinking when she chose a condo project site as a place to lay her eggs? (Photos: Karen Milleson) |
Punta Mita - A few weeks ago, Karen Milleson looked out the window of the six-story El Faro condo project that her husband Russ is developing near Punta Mita on the northeast tip of Banderas Bay, and was shocked to find that an unseen large turtle had come ashore in the night and had laid about 90 eggs. Karen was also distressed, because she could see that the workers at the adjacent condo project were salivating at the sight of the eggs. Mexicans love turtle eggs, a major reason why the turtle population has been decimated in many areas of Mexico.
Not wanting the eggs to be taken, Karen placed a phone call to the Mexican Marines, who just happen to maintain a small detachment a few blocks away. They guarded the eggs until some folks from a turtle protection center near Paradise Marina could come to get them. Once the eggs are hatched in that protected environment, about a third of them will be brought back to the Punta Mita condo for 'relaunching.' This should help ensure that the females will return to the same spot to lay their eggs.
We're not in a position to give a factual evaluation on the overall health of the Pacific Ocean between Mazatlan and Puerto Vallarta, but based on what we've seen in the last week or so, it seems pretty darn good. For example, every time we walked by this one slip way up the channel at Mazatlan Marina, there were about 250 relatively large fish thrashing about. And if you gazed over the marina's turning basin around dusk, it wasn't more than a minute before you'd see a couple of relatively large fish jumping high out of the water for some tasty bug. And mind you, about half of the estuary is in the process of being developed. The other half has been designated a nature preserve.
In addition, we saw so many whales between Mazatlan and Puerto Vallarta that the crew soon lost interest in even getting up to have a look. A couple of the whales were heavily into 'spanking', slapping the water with their flukes. We don't know if they were stirring up dinner or engaged in some kind of mating ritual, but they weren't messing around.
Over this same stretch of water, we saw about 150 rays jump out of the water and do flips. Admittedly, these weren't the ones with the 10-ft wing-spans we used to see flipping in the Sea or Cortez many years ago, but there sure were lots of them.
The night we rounded Punta Mita and dropped the hook, the boat was surrounded by many hundreds of fish, who seemed to have been attracted by the boat. And the next day, folks on shore were telling us that all manner of surf fishing had been terrific recently.
While we're sure things could always be better, they certainly could be worse on this stretch of coast. |
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