Now I’m going home joyous that my presence here helped an entire nest of baby turtles survive the first challenge of their lives.

    Our guide, Castor, is serious when he tells us, "No camera. No flashlight. No cigarette." It’s 10 o’clock at night, and we’ve been stumbling along behind him and his wife, Maria, on the beach in complete darkness for half an hour, hoping that every shadowy form is a giant green sea turtle that has emerged from the Caribbean to lay her eggs on Tortuguero Beach.1
 

    My husband and I have traveled from the central highlands of Costa Rica—three buses, a taxi, and a five-hour boat ride—to the western Caribbean coast, just miles from Nicaragua2, hoping to witness this event in late October at the end of the nesting season. Thunder rumbles behind us offshore. A crack of lightning crosses the moonless sky.3 Ominous4 raindrops threaten to end the whole expedition, and I wonder how the baby turtles ever find their way to the sparkle of the sea on a night such as this.

    We traipse5 behind Castor and Maria in dutiful silence, contemplating the impact we could have on a turtle’s nesting decision. Although they can’t hear well, green sea turtles have a powerful sense of smell. Strong odors and lights can disturb them, and if the female feels threatened, she’ll likely return to the sea to abort6 all 100 to 120 of her eggs—a huge sacrifice for an endangered creature.

    Earlier that day we had read up on threats to the turtles—toxic waste,7 plastic bags, and fishing hooks among other things—at the Caribbean Conservation Corporation information center in the village of Tortuguero. These threats apply, however, only if the baby turtles even make it to the sea in the first place.8

    We stumble farther, past the end of Tortuguero village. Night sounds kick in,9 mysterious calls of unknown birds and insects, followed by profound silence. Then Castor stops suddenly, our small group coming to a clumsy halt behind him.10 With his low-beam flashlight, he draws our eyes down to the sand, churned11 as though a miniature tractor had driven up onto the beach and headed straight inland.

    Castor slips away, follows the trail, and returns. "She is there," he reports, "making her nest now. We’ll wait for her to finish and then we will see her lay the eggs."
 

    Castor lowers his voice, stoops over with his hands on his knees,12 and explains what the female turtle is doing: She’s using her body like a giant power drill13, turning herself around and around in a circle until the top of her shell is nearly even with the sand. Using her powerful, leathery flippers she scoops sand out around her, burrowing deeper.14 Employing her back flippers, she then reaches beneath herself to dig a neat, deep hole for the hundred or more eggs she’ll lay this evening. In two weeks, she’ll come back to this beach and lay some more.

    In hushed tones15 we shower Castor with questions. How long do the eggs need to hatch? Sixty days. How long do green sea turtles live? A hundred years or more. How much do they weigh? They average 300 pounds. Why this beach? The conditions are just right, and the turtles nest on the same beach on which they were born.

    From Tortuguero, the hatchlings16 may travel the Caribbean Sea for decades. Once the females mature at 20 to 30 years old, they’ll return here to lay their eggs every few years.
 

    Then Castor is off again. We sit silently on a big piece of driftwood17, waiting patiently like family members outside the birthing room. Some minutes later, we get the message we’ve been waiting for: "It’s time, she is ready." In the dark we move up the beach, wondering where she is exactly, hesitantly stepping as though we might trip over her.

    "Come, come close, have a look," Castor says, and we gravitate18 toward the soft red glow of his flashlight. His right hand holds the massive turtle’s left rear flipper aside so that the light shines directly into the hole, which is already filling with eggs. The turtle’s droopy pointed tail heaves as a soft, slippery egg slides through and plops into the hole,19 followed by another and another, sometimes two and three in one push, followed by a watery substance.

    Watching her tail so intently feels invasive and I wonder out loud if holding her flipper back is among the things guides shouldn’t do, but do anyway for the tourists’ sake.

    "She’s in a trance20 right now," Castor assures me. "She doesn’t know we’re here."

    I gasp in awe as dozens of eggs drop into the earth, recalling that only a sturdy few will survive, and that only 1 to 3 percent of the females who hatch from these eggs will make it back to this beach to lay their own eggs.

    The turtle’s tail swells one last time, then relaxes, producing nothing. Within minutes her tail flippers begin scraping sand from the walls around her, dragging it over the top of the eggs to build a mound21 underneath her. Gradually the eggs disappear from sight, and the scraping sound of her flippers subsides.

    Castor has slipped away again. He signals us to another spot some distance away.

    Unbelievably, another nest is hatching at this very moment, dozens of baby turtles desperately flailing22 their way to the surface, trying to drag themselves up out of the hole and to the sea.

    But there’s a problem. A huge driftwood log lies embedded in the sand parallel to the sea, obstructing their passage down the beach. As the little turtles scatter from the nest, dazed and looking for the light of the sea, Castor shines his beam toward the water and Maria scoops23 the newborns up by the handful and places them on the other side of the log.

    If we weren’t here at this moment, most of them would have wandered aimlessly toward the jungle and death.

    Hordes24 of them scramble from the hole. It’s a process that’s gone on for 2 million years. I root for25 every tiny one of them.

    Afterward, as we stroll back to the village of Tortuguero, I recall my mixed feelings about the human impact on this environment. Now I’m going home joyous that my presence here helped an entire nest of baby turtles survive the first challenge of their lives.∷

    1. green turtle: 绿海龟，因其身上脂肪呈绿色而得名，属高度濒危保护动物；Tortuguero Beach: 托尔图格罗海滩，长约30公里，位于哥斯达黎加（Costa Rica）首都圣何塞东北150公里处的加勒比海（Caribbean）沿岸，每年平均约有10万多只绿海龟在此产卵，这里是世界第二大绿海龟产卵区。

    2. Nicaragua: 尼加拉瓜，西临太平洋，东临加勒比海，南接哥斯达黎加。

    3. 雷声在我们身后近海的地方隆隆作响。没有月亮。一道闪电划过天空。

    4. ominous: 不祥的，不吉利的。

    5. traipse: 慢走，拖着脚步走。

    6. abort: 使流产。

    7. read up (on): 研究，攻读；toxic waste: 有毒废弃物。

    8. 然而，这些威胁依然存在，除非小海龟们能在第一时间成功回到大海。make it: <口>及时抵达，成功做到；in the first place: 首先，第一。

    9. 夜晚的声音开始响了起来。kick in: 开启，开始。

    10. 我们这一小队人也在他身后手忙脚乱地停了下来。

    11. churn: 搅动。

    12. 弯下腰，双手扶在膝盖上。stoop: 俯身，弯腰。

    13. power drill: 机械钻。

    14. 她用有力而坚韧的鳍肢把沙子挖出来，堆在自己的四周，再挖得更深一些。flipper: （海龟等的）鳍肢；scoop: 挖。

    15. hushed tone: 压低的声调。

    16. hatchling: （刚出生的）鱼苗（或雏鸟）。此处指小海龟。

    17. driftwood: 漂流木。

    18. gravitate: 受吸引，移向。

    19. droopy: 低垂的，下垂的；heave: 升起，隆起；plop: 扑通落下。

    20. trance: 昏睡状态。

    21. mound: 土墩，土堆。

    22. flail: 敲击，（胡乱地）摆动。

    23. scoop: 此处意为“用勺舀，用铲子铲”。

    24. horde: 一群，一伙。

    25. root (for): 支持。此处有“帮助”之意。