"Would you like to see some turtles?"

Deb and I were minding our own business, just walking along to see some old friends from St. Louis whose boat is up on the hard in a nearby marina. It was a perfect afternoon for a walk through the quiet streets of Oriental and it is fair to say that a question about seeing turtles was far beyond the last thing I was expecting. Yet that is exactly the question the elderly lady stepping down from her golf cart offered up for our consideration. Generally speaking I am not much for chatting with strangers. And a question about turtles? Some kind of trick question that will land me on a YouTube channel or something? On the other hand it was such an odd question that saying “no thank you” wasn't really an option either. One of the reasons for living on a boat is to see different things in different places. So we followed her between a couple of houses and out to the small canal that runs through parts of Oriental. 

There we found three additional women tossing food scraps into the muddy water. We didn't see “some” turtles. There were dozens and dozens of turtles gathered around to get their share of the bounty. Some were honking big snapping turtles, the kind that can cleanly remove a finger or two with a single bite. It looked like there were some other kinds of turtles in there as well, though herpetology isn't my thing. 

As far as one could see up and down the channel from where we stood, turtle heads popped up, looked for a path through the melee, then disappeared in a little ring of wavelets. This was, after all, a turtle feeding frenzy and not some shark or orca attack. It was all happening in a clumsy kind of slow motion. Turtles can't leap out of the water to snatch their meal out of the air. But they can find a conveniently sized companion and crawl aboard. Not only does this get them closer to the food, it shoves a competitor down into the mirk. Of course, being turtles, they might not be quick enough to avoid being the stepping stone for the next turtle in line. Ancients who believed that the earth was flat claimed that a giant turtle carried it through the cosmos on its shell. When asked what the turtle was standing on the answer was “It's turtles all the way down”. Turtles all the way down though, in this case, the bottom of the stack was likely just a foot or two into the mud. Still, it was more turtles than either Deb or I have ever seen all in one place.

As it turned out, the ladies providing the food do this every evening right around 5:00. It seems that turtles have some sense of time because they gather around every evening to get their share. The whole thing was delightfully bizarre. Eventually we had to say our thank-you's and goodbyes and be on our way. But is was one of those stories that will be bringing up a smile every time it is told.