Liz Gregg is Upwell’s Development and Communications Coordinator. She recently traveled to Costa Rica with Upwell’s Executive Director and Board members to learn more about sea turtle conservation in the region.

Our rental van rattled over the rough gravel road to Ostional, pausing momentarily at the last stream crossing. It was difficult to see how deep the murky, brown water was, and even harder to imagine this route being passable in the wet season on the Nicoya Peninsula of Costa RIca. Though Latin American transport can come with challenges, all of this was incredibly exciting for me. As a fundraiser, it’s not often I get to experience sea turtles directly, so I feel especially fortunate that I recently had the opportunity to accompany Upwell’s board to Costa Rica to view the olive ridley sea turtle arribada this year in January.

Arribada roughly translates to “arrival”, but in so many ways, it’s an understatement. Turtle nesting on Ostional Beach occurs year-round, but hits a peak in the rainy season between August and November. Each month on the last quarter of the full moon, olive ridley sea turtles gather off the coast of Ostional and prepare to lay their eggs en masse. The mass nesting of the arribada corresponds with the evening high tide, and for a few nights each month hundreds to thousands of sea turtles emerge from the sea to lay their eggs. A gathering of this size demonstrates the need to protect coastal waters where sea turtles congregate from fisheries interactions and other human-related threats. El Refugio de Vida Silvestre Ostional protects a large stretch of beach and wetlands from Playa Ostional to Punta Guiones and the surrounding waters.   

We arrived about an hour or two before sunset. As we approached, we saw bags upon bags of harvested sea turtle eggs. Ostional is one of the few communities where regulated harvest of sea turtle eggs for human consumption is allowed. The rationale behind this is that during the melee of the arribada, the nests of the first turtles are inevitably dug up by subsequent nesting turtles when they nest in such great numbers over several days. Therefore, during the first 36 hours of an arribada event, local villagers are allowed to collect sea turtle eggs for sale with regulated permits. In exchange for permission to participate in the legal, regulated egg harvest, the local community helps protect the remaining nests from poachers and predators. 

About 200 yards down we spotted a turtle emerging from the sea. She labored her way across the wet sand, pausing every 15-20 seconds to breathe deeply. Our Costa Rican guide advised us to keep our distance to avoid disturbing her nest site selection. We waited with anticipation until she started digging. Once she committed to her nest site, he told us it was safe to get a little closer, provided that we stayed towards the back or sides of the turtle and did not approach her from the front or enter her line of sight. 

She began digging in earnest with her front flippers, throwing the damp sand behind her. The lacrimal glands near her eyes (designed to excrete salt) created wet streaks down her face. As the hole became deeper, she transitioned to using her hind flippers, delicately scooping the sand outwards. At about 2 feet deep, the hole in the sand was ready for the eggs. Olive ridley sea turtles deposit approximately 100 ping pong ball size eggs during each nesting event and can nest 3 times per year.

With the eggs in place she began to cover the nest with sand using her hind flippers. Olive ridleys don’t have the strength to compact the sand with their hind flippers alone, so as the hole filled, she began what is known as the “ridley shuffle”. A few scoops inward with the hind flippers followed by a sideways rocking of the carapace to compress the sand. Overall her nesting efforts took about an hour. She shuffled and swept the sand with her flippers a few more times to obscure the nest before turning towards the sea. The sun sank through the clouds as she labored back across the sand to her ocean home. I felt quite certain it was the most surreal photo opportunity nature has ever afforded me, and although I do not consider myself a good photographer, I hope you’ll agree that the photos are amazing.

But this was just the beginning! We grabbed a quick meal to sustain ourselves for the long night ahead. Our guide gave us an overview on the arribada and outlined the monitoring and conservation efforts at Ostional. We switched on the red lights on our headlamps and returned to the beach in the dark, tripping over rocks and sticks. Red light, as opposed to white light, doesn’t disturb the nesting turtles, but in my experience it doesn’t lend well to clumsy human transit in unfamiliar locations! 

We reached the junction between sand and sea in less than five minutes. I could hear the turtles breathing deeply between the breaking of waves as they crawled up the shore. Clusters of red lights stood out along the high tide line as groups of tourists, both national and foreign, marveled at the nesting process. 

In the dim red light I could see no further than 10-15 feet in front of me; it was almost easier to identify a turtle’s presence by hearing her heaving breath than to spot her at a distance. For every 20-30 feet we walked, we encountered another one or two turtles coming or going. Though we wouldn’t be there all night, I knew this would continue until sunrise. 

Olive ridley eggs hatch 45-54 days after they are laid. It’s been about a little over two weeks since I was at Ostional. In 4-5 weeks or so, the baby turtles will make their mad dash to the sea. They will spend ten years or more in the ocean during the phase of their lives before reaching maturity often called the “lost years” because so little is known about where they go and what they do. In fact, they will spend about 99% of their lives out at sea, with mature females only returning to their natal beaches to nest periodically. What I saw was just a glimpse of their lives. It is now more important than ever to turn our attention to protecting them in the places we don’t usually get to see them: out at sea.