What will you be looking for when out at the beach at night? Crabs? Seashells? camp sites? How about some fallen coconuts or peculiar looking branches of trees that have washed ashore? If you are searching for these things on a tropical beach, chances are you’re going to find them. One night, in a rare stroke of luck the Stairway kids, along with the housefather and two Stairway volunteers, stumbled upon a precious sight and happened to witness one of nature’s most spectacular shows.
On a Saturday night, on the 23rd of January, the Stairway kids, and I headed down to the beach, guided only by the light of the moon. The plan was to catch crabs, but because of the brightness of the moonlight, the crabs would see us before we even got near to them. Before the river, we were lucky and found some small critters on the sand. Some were as big as a peso coin, but the better ones would be at the other sites across the river and further down the beach.
It was high tide and the current of the adjacent river flowing to the sea was strong enough to knock you off balance, but we braved the strong current and reached the other side. We walked nearly the entire length of the beach and found no crabs. Much to our disappointment, we turned to walk back and came upon a huge log lying in our path. It was washed ashore by the last typhoon. Suddenly something moved in the sand. Ate Sophie opened her flashlight to see what it was maybe it’s a crab. But upon careful examination, she screamed in excitement.
“Oh! It’s a baby turtle!”
So we looked down and, yes, it was a baby turtle.
I instantly had a suspicion that a nest was nearby so I aimed my flashlight up shore and there we witnessed more or less 20 little turtles coming out of the sand and heading for the water. We sat and kneeled down in felicity as if we were still in disbelief that we were witnessing such an incredible phenomenon. We took a moment to cherish the event as one of the tiny turtles was pounding its head on my knee as if it was knocking on a door. Cute! We thought that it would be best to help them get to the water for some walkers-by might step on them by accident. So we did.
Witnessing the smiles on the kids’ faces was priceless. Even I have never ever seen what nature presented to us that night. Hearing the kids talk to each other about helping the turtles to get to the water made me smile for I can feel that they are concern for nature “a whole awful lot.” It was the talk of the night and nobody even wanted to go to bed.
The evening turned out to be a date with nature that neither I nor the children will ever forget.
Nature fascinates us in so many different ways. It can reshape landscapes, redraw maps, reroute rivers, repaint the skies and most importantly put smiles on our faces when at times the best clothes, humongous bank accounts, the most expensive cars, the most awesome houses or the best smelling perfumes cannot offer.
And best of all… it’s FREE!
Loyloy Biscaro, Art/Music teacher, SFI