When Bill and Cathy Crane retired to Mexico 12 years ago, they knew they were not going to be typical tourists.
Rather, they were determined to be involved in their new community, learn the language and count locals among their friends.
They have succeeded on all counts. But they have also found themselves involved in the community in ways they could never have imagined when they built their house at Punta Perula, a small fishing village two-and-a-half hours south of Puerto Vallarta.
It’s been four years since the couple discovered that sea turtles were an endangered species and that the Civil Protection Program in Mexico is attempting to assist three species of sea turtle: the Olive Ridley, the green sea turtle and the leatherback.
The Morning Star spoke to the Cranes in 2009, after they had been lending their services to the program for two years. Since then, they are busier than ever.
“We’re married to it, and it ties us down, but it’s so rewarding,” said Bill, who spent 30 years as a paramedic with the B.C. Ambulance Service. “We’ve got two more seasons under our belt since the last story ran. Every year, when we come back to the Okanagan, we forget how hard it is.
“But when you see the little guys come out of the sand, there is something to it, it’s magical.”
Traditionally, sea turtles were a food source for many people in Mexico, and the eggs are valuable to poachers, who sell them on the black market.
Bill and Cathy and the many volunteers who join them are determined to do what they can to protect the turtles and their eggs during the main season, June to September. Typically, sea turtles will lay about 60 to 110 eggs per nest, with the eggs resembling a soft ping pong ball.
Armed with their licence from the Turtle Preservation Society, the Cranes spend an enormous chunk of their time digging up turtle eggs and relocating them to the compound they have built on the beach in front of their house. The eggs are dug up, numbered, dated. After about 55 days, the eggs hatch and the hatchlings “swim” through the sand to reach the surface. They are then placed in a water-filled container where they are protected until night-fall and then released onto the beach. They are released onto the sand, to get the scent in order to help them to return to the same spot for nesting when they reach maturity, which can be anywhere from eight to 50 years, depending on the species.
“Funds to continue the program are always an issue and when we are in Mexico, we convince our North American friends there to donate funds,” said Cathy, adding that funds are mainly used for gas to power the ATVs that are used to patrol the beaches in search of nesting sites.
One of the most memorable experiences for the Cranes has been the appearance, at long last, of the leatherback turtle, which was listed as endangered more than 40 years ago, with scientists citing commercial fishing as the most likely cause for the decline.
“We had a juvenile mom come in and saw her come out of the water at night and we watched her lay her eggs,” said Bill. “That was the first time we’d seen a leatherback and it renewed our spirits — leatherbacks hadn’t been seen in the area for 20 years.
“Her nest was easy to find because of the tracks: eight feet wide as opposed to one and a half feet. Cathy saw her come right out of the water, right in front of our house, this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. We are sure proud of that leatherback.”
The Olive Ridley weighs up to 85 pounds, the green sea turtle gets to 300 pounds, but the leatherback weighs in at 1,000 pounds and grows to six feet.
The leatherbacks live all over the world and have been spotted as far north as Nova Scotia and as far south as Chile. Their only source of food is jellyfish, but they often mistake plastic bags for jellyfish and choke on them.
Spending six months of the year in Punta Perula means plenty of visitors from home for Cathy and Bill, as well as the chance to develop life-long friendships with the locals.
“When you move to a foreign country, you want to be involved in the community because it’s our life for six months of the year,” said Cathy, retired from a career in banking. “It’s not just a vacation and with the turtles, this is a way for us to give back, and the locals really appreciate it.”
Bill agreed and added that instead of being seen as wealthy tourists, he and Cathy have earned the respect and friendship of the community, aided by Cathy’s fluent Spanish and Bill’s understanding of the language.
“It’s so rewarding because everybody knows us, so we get invited to so many family functions,” he said. “When we put the word out that we’re putting the turtles in the water, we get a tremendous amount of Mexican people coming out to help.”
Cathy added that for many of the local children who have only consumed turtle meat, it’s a special thrill for them to have a hand in releasing the tiny turtles into the water.
“These children are really the first generation of kids there who are getting the knowledge about the turtles,” she said. “That’s when it hit me that we were part of a rewarding program, so it’s the next generation learning turtle preservation.
“And Mexican folklore states that when a person releases a turtle, they are responsible for naming it, giving it a kiss and wishing it good luck before releasing it.
“It’s just magical when the babies come out of the sand, and they are instantly active. We keep them until the evening and then when it’s time to release them, we let them smell the sand and they come back to lay their own eggs in 15 to 20 years.”
Occasionally, there are surprises: an albino turtle one year, completely white, and a baby missing a limb. Sometimes, Bill puts one or two in an “incubator,” a margarine container rigged up to keep the babies warm.
Although Cathy has taught English at a tiny school in the mountains near their village, she is now devoting her time to the preservation of the sea turtles.
“It’s very time-consuming, all day and every day, you literally babysit the nests,” said Cathy, adding that the eggs are threatened by predators such as birds and the heat of the sun, as well as poachers.
“Poachers will sell the eggs for food, as they are considered an aphrodisiac, and it takes many years to change the culture and the way of thinking.”
The Cranes are always happy to welcome friends, family and guests from the Okanagan to stay in their guest house, but both admit that while they treasure the life they have created on the Pacific Ocean, it’s not a life of leisure: toilets still have to be cleaned, dishes washed and laundry done.
“We definitely don’t sit under an umbrella all day, we are working around the house because we have maintenance to do, just as we would here,” said Bill. “And then every 15 minutes we’re checking on the turtle nests.”
In their first year of turtle preservation, the Cranes released 800 baby turtles into the Pacific; last year, the number had grown to 1,800.
“We have friends who come to visit and they can’t wait to be part of it, sometimes they book their vacation around the turtle seasons. And our two grown kids also love to come and help with the turtles,” said Cathy. “We do a release with a group of our North American friends, people always want to know if we have turtles.
“If we have a batch of turtles, we will take them to supper with us or to happy hour so we can keep an eye on them.”
When Bill and Cathy return to their Armstrong home in the spring, they have a local man in Mexico who tends to the nests in their absence.
“We always knew we’d do something in the village, and we always wanted to give back and we were looking for a cause,” said Cathy.
And now that they’re back in the North Okanagan, they haven’t quite adjusted to the change in weather.
“We have a problem with the colder weather and we spent our first year back in our basement by the fire, drinking wine as we were so cold,” said Bill.
Meanwhile, as the North Okanagan summer kicks into gear, Bill will resume his part-time logging work, and Cathy will be busy in the garden of their Armstrong home, while her husband tends to the large vegetables he grows for entry into the IPE giant vegetable section.
But with the rewards of an Okanagan summer ahead for the Cranes, the turtles are never far from their thoughts.
“We think about them when we’re up here, but we feel so much better having a secure compound for the turtles, and a local man who monitors them for us.”
