Nikki Gallen - Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica
Week 3

            My arm is extended straight down into the sand. With my cheek nearly touching the ground, my fingertips are searching for the freshly lain nest of an Olive Ridley marine sea turtle. They sink through the sand and my heart jumps when they hit something new. Below the world we walk upon, underneath the beautiful black sand beach, a mysterious and beautiful animal develops. There are hundreds of nests, a world below. They are hidden, concealed, and completely unknown once the sand shifts, erasing any evidence of a tracks and body pit.

The world around me is dark. The absent light is intense, and we walk through the abyss with no lamps to guide our way. We become accustomed to the darkness, and begin to feel comfortable in it. Our eyes adjust to the black and the only thing that can be made out is the difference in shades of grey. The ocean fades into the ground below you which continues into the black mass of the forest. It is like seeing without color. The shadows become the only light. You become able to see with these shadows. See in the dark.

The darkness is what we wait for. Every day we sit and wait for night. We work in the night, are awake for the night, and the night becomes day. The day becomes a world full of drones; sleep deprived glazed eyes stare out into the day. They squint at the sun, unaccustomed to its harshness. Where is the dark?

With my arm extended into the earth, I reach and scoop out the eggs, replacing them in a white garbage bag. Because of official procedure, my headlamp glows red as I excavate, revealing the world around me in an eerie manner. The ground is red and the others faces glow.

99… I count… 100…110, 111, 112. “That’s it, 112,” I say. I fill in the empty nest with my foot. Filling in the hole and then stomping it down.

My red light is switched off as soon as I stand up, along with everyone else’s, and we stumble up the beach to higher ground, temporarily blinded by the red situated just above our eyes.

The eggs are replaced into the womb of the earth… only in a less dangerous place; one more likely to stay safe from the harms of high tides or flooding rivers. One more nest moved, 112 more likely hatchlings, conservation at its finest.