maskormenacelogs | [ open ] operation: baby sea turtle rescue is a go!

WHO: ALL IMPORTS.
WHERE: An Atlantic-facing beach in Eastern Florida.
WHEN: Saturday - Monday
WHAT: Baby leatherback sea-turtles have been stunned by the temperatures of the water at their hatching beach, and must be rounded up in their thousands to be relocated to warmer waters, either to struggle out through the surf on their own, or to be boated out and released directly into the sea!
WARNINGS: ... How can this log have warnings ImPorts rescue baby sea turtles! More information located here.

The long stretch of beach the ImPorts find themselves on is littered with baskets, coolers, styrofoam containers, anything the rescue workers could use to hold the baby sea turtles for transit. Dozens of nests have all emptied of turtles, and gulls roam overhead, looking for opportunities to snatch the stunned baby sea turtles tumbling around in the waves. The shock of the unexpected temperature on their tiny systems renders them incapable of moving, and ImPorts will soon find themselves ushered to the water line to grab tiny, tumbling turtles out of the water.

When enough are collected, a portion of the volunteers and ImPorts are pulled aside to ride with the baby turtles down the coastline to warmer waters, where they'll either be asked to cart the containers down to the waterline to release the baby sea turtles and watch that they don't end up shocked all over again, or instructed to go out to sea on any of the chartered or volunteer-driven boats and release the sea turtles directly into the warmer ocean waters.

Water and lunches will be provided, dinner is haphazard, come as you go. Bright search floodlights are set up on Saturday night so that collection rescue efforts can continue without much interruption. If the same is needed on Sunday night, it will be provided.

For some ImPorts, this will be the first time their arrival isn't treated with great fanfare. People with abilities that assist in the collection and redistribution of the baby sea turtles will get relieved displays of gratitude from attending volunteers and any press drawn to the scene, but much of the fervency seen elsewhere will be largely absent.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I might! Thanks, Annie.

We dove off a cliff once, but...it wasn't really flying.

[Tugging the brim of her hand down more firmly, Winry watches the gulls.]

'We?"

[ Cliff diving really isn't the same... then again, free falling is a whole different kind of heart-pounding. Annie squints up at the gulls, but there's not so many, and they're not as aggressive as other seabirds would have been. Not so many impressive diving feats, at least not yet. ]

Mm...we needed to get down the cliff fast, so Ed put on a pair of wings and told me to hold on. It was scary but fun!

[Winry peers up at the sky, watching the gulls. They're circling the boat.]

... That worked?

[ Pardon her surprise, Winry, but that sounds too simple and... too much like nothing she's seen before to know if it's easy or not, with the right materials. ]

It was kind of like...I don't know. Bat wings. And the rebels used them - the wings - daily. Ed borrowed a set, and we went down the side of the cliff.

Rebels?

[ Amestris is a complicated sounding place. ]

Mmm, fighting to keep their country safe from two other countries.

...Amestris being one of them.

[She tilted her head back more as one of the volunteers shouts that the water's clear, and the birds are heading toward a shrimp boat.]

I guess we can let a few more babies go now.

[ Politics are always confusing business. How muddled they get over time... Annie sighs inwardly, moving back to the remaining tubs and picking one up, bringing it out of the shade. ]

What do these animals even eat out in the sea? Fish? Water weeds?

I don't know. I know the ones on land usually eat plants. There are some in the valley where I lived that eat cacti!

[Winry picks up her own bucket, smiling down at the babies inside.]

I guess you won't eat cacti, though, huh? They don't grow underwater.

Maybe they eat the equivalent of underwater cacti.

[ Nevermind that Annie doesn't know what that is. Other than apparently a plant in valleys. It's an attempt at a jest, delivered while concentrating on letting fresh saltwater flood over the lip of her tub into the swirling mass of sea turtles within. It's about getting them used to the temperature, just as floating the tub within the water first helps, just like fresh salt water added to the waiting tubs keeps the water from getting too warm, and helps adjust the whole time. It's almost meditative, watching the turtles swirl around, moving together, bumping into each other and correcting. Soon enough they'll be swirling right on past each other into the sea. ]

[Winry snickered at the joke, not realizing that Annie didn't know what cacti were. She watched the babies swirling around in the bucket, and then watched them spill out into the water and swim away.]

Good luck.

[ No comment from the turtles. They bob and dive, taking their chances in the world of water and air they touch on, part of both at once. ]

See you later.

[ And who knows? They might. If they're around and spend time out in the Atlantic ocean waters. She stands up, letting water pour back out of her empty tub, glancing Winry's way. ]

Thirsty?

[Turning away from the side of the boat and the disappearing turtles, Winry smiles a bit.]

I wouldn't turn down a water.

[ A nod, and Annie heads back to go find the cooler, pulling out two bottles of water from the ice water everything was halfway floating in. There's soda there too, but she avoids that in general (the sugar just hits too fast, the sweetness makes her teeth ache).

She offers one bottle to Winry when she returns, taking her own in her hands and untwisting the top, leaning against the sunwarmed rail. ]

Sunset's different at sea, isn't it.

[Winry stares toward the shore, and the setting sun.] It is.

[The water was stained all deep orange, and the waves cast darker shadows. The shoreline had strings of lights, different colors for houses and for businesses, creating a pattern of color back at the shore. The breeze coming off the water was cool, and Winry wished for a jacket, or even a long-sleeved shirt. Well, they were running out of buckets of babies, they'd be going back to shore soon.]

Dolphin!

[One of the volunteers pointed out at the water farther east of them, and the creatures rose out of the sea before dropping down into it. Their exhalations carried across the ocean.]

Dolphin?

[ Annie looks along the way the volunteers point, not seeing the animal in question at first. Her first introduction had been out at sea, closer to the Florida shore, on the glass bottom boat tour Will had set her up on months before. When she does, she's caught off guard enough to smile. Dolphins have a certain playful, powerful curiosity in how they move. Further out as they are, the dolphins don't come in closer, breaching and throwing themselves into the air, falling down with a splash that carries as much as their exhalations across the open sea. ]

They're such interesting creatures.

[Winry spots the dolphins, smiling at the sight of them. She had heard they were mammals, rather than fish. She thought she might like to see them up close, as opposed to those sharks she heard about via communications.]

I'd like to see them closer, some time. [She thought Al would probably love them.]

There are places where they let you swim with the females. Boats you can go out on that take you by where they spend time, too.

[ Annie watches the orange and black surface of the water. ]

Do you know Will Graham?

Really? That could be interesting. [Such big animals, could they be safe?]

[...that's a strange question.]

I think I've met him through communications, but never in person.

He may be able to help you find a way of seeing the dolphins, if you're interested in that. He's veery knowledgable about all things relating to the sea.

[ She has a lot of respect for Will, and this knowledge is part of it. ]

That's good to know!

[She knows next to nothing about the ocean, after all.]

[ open ] operation: baby sea turtle rescue is a go!

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that's such a cute icon

Aww, thanks. So is yours.

haha thank you!

:D

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