CHELLIE GULPED SOME MILK, GOBBLED a banana and ran down to the beach. There were three kids as well as two adults in the rubber duckie. What fun! Chellie didn’t often have other kids to play with. But they hadn’t come to play. As they waded ashore, Chellie could see that they were carrying garbage bags.
‘Hi! You must be Chelonia Green!’ the big boy greeted her. ‘I’m Tim.’ He was the oldest and obviously the leader, Chellie decided.
‘I thought your letter was cool,’ the girl said. She was about Chellie’s age. ‘I’m Jacinta.’
She’ll do, Chellie murmured to herself.
‘And I’m Will,’ the small boy piped up. ‘We’ve come to help.’
‘That’s great! Did you see the article in the paper?’ Chellie asked.
‘No. What article?’ her three new friends chorused.
Their tall, cheerful father, anchor in left hand, stretched out his right. ‘I owe you an apology, Chelonia. I’m John, editor of the cruising yacht club magazine you sent an email to. I’m sorry I didn’t acknowledge it. We were away. But it’s going into our next newsletter and our family certainly want to help. OK if we moor for the day and come ashore?’
The children’s mother, with a picnic basket over her arm, put out her hand. ‘ I’m Sally,’ she smiled. ‘We’d love to meet your parents.’
Chellie could only grin.
Mum and Dad came down the beach as the dinghy from the fishing boat, with two kids and two adults aboard, nosed in. A stocky, weather-beaten man hopped out nimbly.
‘I’m Ted from the fishermen’s co-op. Sorry I didn’t have time to answer your email, Chelonia Green, but our family is here now to help you clean up some of my fellow fishermen’s junk. Careless coots, my lot. But I’m putting your message on our website, so hopefully they might be a bit more careful and there mightn’t be so much rubbish in future. This is my wife, Joan, and the kids, Jack and Alice.’
Jack, probably a year younger than Tim, had broad shoulders and a smile almost as wide. Sweet-faced little Alice, plump and rosy like her mother, made Chellie think of a peach.
Chellie was lost for words. But she managed to ask, ‘Did you see the article in today’s paper?’
Ted laughed. ‘Today’s paper wasn’t even printed when we left port yesterday. A pity they have to use white paper now for fish and chips, or more people might read it.’
Chellie grinned even wider. She liked Ted. This was going to be a fun day. Like a party. A birthday party for Caretta’s babies, maybe.
‘Would you like to see the turtles before we start on the rubbish collecting?’ Chellie asked everyone.
‘Yes, please,’ was the emphatic answer.
So, taking picnic baskets, off they went.
Turtle Beach was looking its loveliest: wide and shining, scalloped with lacy foam as the sea receded.
‘We have to be quiet. We don’t want to disturb the turtles,’ Chellie warned. ‘And there may not be many, as some have probably laid all their six clutches by now and gone back to sea.’
She led the visitors carefully across the rocks of Turtle Point. When they gazed down into the big pool, the looks on their faces thrilled her. Nine more instant turtle lovers.
Jacinta thought she could have gazed at the turtles all day, but Chellie announced, ‘Time to go to work.’
Except that it was more like fun than work, because Chellie organised it like a treasure hunt.
‘The men can do the ropes and twine and fishing stuff , because they’re heavy. Tim, Will and Jack can collect the big plastic, and Jacinta, Alice and I will do bottles and small plastics. The Mums can do thongs and house things. Let’s do the whole beach like it’s never been done before and meet back here at the bins for lunch.’
The men inspected the bins, already full almost to overflowing.
‘Looks as if there’s another job for us, Ted,’ John remarked, ‘moving this stuff back to an onshore dump.’
Dad beamed. ‘That would be really helpful. I’m running out of chicken wire to make more bins.’
‘Consider it done,’ Ted declared. ‘Back to the mainland where it came from.’
Everyone spread out along the beach, picking, pulling, dragging, tugging, exclaiming over what they found. Chellie had never seen so many people on any of their beaches, never seen so much activity. When they met up again, bags were bulging and the visitors were shocked by the amount of rubbish.
‘You should have seen it before Chellie started her blitz,’ Dad told them.
‘It was the beach of a billion bottles!’ Mum added. ‘But many hands make light work.’
‘The beach hasn’t been this clean since before Captain Cook and Matthew Flinders sailed along this coast,’ Chellie beamed. Who’s for a swim?’
Everyone raced down to the water, chasing and splashing each other, squealing and laughing. It was the best fun Chellie had ever had. After lunch, it didn’t take long to clean up the latest flotsam and jetsam in Oystercatcher Cove before moving to Snowy Beach. Chellie was pleased that no one complained about the rock hopping and scrambling, not even Alice who had the shortest legs. Will, who was not much bigger, was as surefooted as Chellie herself.
‘I haven’t done as much work here as on Turtle Beach,’ she explained. ‘So there’s lots to clear up. But there’s a special spot I’ll show you where we don’t want to compact the sand.’ Chellie led the way to the loggerhead tracks, telling the story of Caretta as they walked.
‘You mean those eggs might be hatching any minute?’ Tim asked.
‘Those baby turtles might come out tonight?’ squeaked Will.
‘Oh please, can we stay and watch?’ Jacinta pleaded with her parents.
Jack and Alice joined the chorus.
‘We’ve never seen baby turtles on their way to the sea.’
‘And we’ve got our sleeping bags.’
The parents all looked at each other. Chellie held her breath.
‘We’ll have to douse the campfire early,’ Dad decreed. ‘It might confuse the hatchlings.’ So it was settled. Chellie flashed a smile at Dad.
While Dad and the mothers went back for sleeping bags and food, lots of it, the cleaning gang got busy, scouring every square metre of sea wrack halfway along the beach.
The sky was turning watermelon pink when Dad and the mothers returned, laden like packhorses with camping gear and enough food for twelve hungry people.
‘Let’s get the cooking done before dark,’ Dad said, building a fire round a big billy containing saveloys, and banking it up with heavier wood to make coals for damper and grilling chops.
Chellie loved to watch the green and blue flames spurting and flaring from the driftwood. So, it seemed, did the others. Everyone stood around, listening to the hiss of the fire and the lap of the waves.
‘I’ll never forget this,’ Jacinta whispered to Chellie, and Alice squeezed her hand.
The first stars were beginning to show like moth holes in a dark blue blanket when Dad doused the fire and scuff ed a thick layer of sand over the coals. Then he explained how they had to wait and watch in stillness and silence away from the nest area.
‘I’ll have a special torch to check on developments, if any, from time to time. But it’s a waiting game, and you have to remember this mightn’t be the night anyway. So don’t be disappointed if nothing happens.’
The dry sand where they squatted was still blood warm, the beach beyond was silver cool and the sea was blue as midnight. It seemed to Chellie as if they were in a magic circle, mesmerised by the crooning of the waves and the first call of the curlews.
In her mind’s eye she could see Caretta emerging from the water, making her way up the beach where she had been born. She watched her laboriously digging her body pit, excavating her egg chamber. She could see the eggs dropping one by one, silvery, like Christmas baubles in the moonlight, could see Caretta covering them over, backfilling the big pit, setting off back to the sea. Hungry probably after all that effort. Seizing a morsel that glinted temptingly in the moonlit water. Choking. Entangled in the wicked fishing line. Choking choking choking. Starving, starving slowly. To death.
Chellie shivered and Jacinta moved closer on one side and Alice on the other. Chellie was grateful for their warmth, their friendship, their care. She wanted to see Caretta’s babies emerge, but somehow now she wanted it even more for these others who had come to help.
A star fell. A small bat flittered by. A lone oystercatcher shrilled its peeping cry. Then suddenly the sand stirred in the centre of the magic circle. Slightly. Or had it? Eyes strained to confirm what they had seen. Yes, there it was again. A ripple. Just a slight ripple. Dad shone his shaded torch. Yes! There was a wee dark head appearing from the sand. And another. And another. Suddenly the sand was erupting with turtles. Tiny little creatures with shells no longer than Chellie’s little finger, smaller even than green turtle hatchlings. Caretta’s babies. The protective circle parted to let them pass.
Everyone held their breath as the turtles headed towards the sea. Scurrying, hurrying towards their new life. Chellie tried to count and thought she reached one hundred and seventeen. One hundred and seventeen little loggerheads.
‘Go, little turtles, go! Stay safe, stay strong, grow, grow, grow. And come back again. Please do.’
Quietly, at a respectful distance, they followed the hatchlings down to the water. Watched them slip into their new home – swimming easily, naturally, gracefully, young as they were.
As the last turtle disappeared into a gentle wavelet everyone let out a sigh of relief – a deep breath of exhilaration – and turned in silence to hug each other. Together they had watched this special miracle.
Chellie was smiling, but the tears were running down her cheeks. Caretta’s babies. The odds were against them, she knew. But please, please, let one of them survive. Let at least one come back. Thirty years on. Even if I’m not here to see it.
They walked to where the sleeping bags were already laid out. Still nobody spoke. The moment was too deep for words. They gathered in a circle again around the nest, and although she could barely see, Chellie knew that everyone was smiling. It was a night they would never forget.