Texas Sea Turtles (and a few boxes too)

We took a pre-Fourth break and headed to Galveston Island for a quick respite. The rain followed us there, but it wasn't thundering when we arrived, so the kids were able to swim in the pool for hours. After dinner, the skies cleared and we strolled on the beach. Being near the ocean is always so calming. Unless you're 9 years old, when it is an opportunity to run around like mad.

Today was nicer, so we hit the beach, then the pool, then the seafood house. After lunch, we toured the NOAA Fisheries Sea Turtle Facility. This is a very interesting tour, where you can see the Kemp's Ridleys and the Loggerheads being housed until they are big enough to be released into the wild. The Kemp's Ridleys were all hatched on Texas beaches, and each of them is missing part of a flipper. When they're bigger, they can be released and will compensate. The Loggerhead pictured above is 3 years old. In the wild, it would not be nearly as large, but in the fishery, they are fed an ample diet and the water is warm enough that they grow all year, rather than the six months they do in the wild. The Loggerheads are all from Georgia, and were imprinted on that beach, so they must be rereleased there.

The 2007 hatchlings haven't arrived yet, so these turtles were all between one and three years old.

This doesn't have much to do with letterboxing, unless you count that I have a now missing Kemp's Ridley box. But cool nonetheless.

We did find letterboxes at two rather neat locations: Seawolf Park and Kempner Park. The one at Sea Wolf Park celebrates the SS Selma, one of 19 concrete ships constructed in 1919, now sunk off Galveston Island. I'm glad someone planted a box so we would see it.

You can't make stuff up as interesting as real life.