Yesterday at the last dive of the trip our sister boat Explorer warned us as they left the Boiler on their way to Cabo. They had just passed by a bunch of debris with possibly a turtle entangled and asked us if we could help it. I left with one of the tenders to check and it wasn’t just one, but two Green Turtles entangled into what looked like some illegal fishing buoy and lines! First one was lightly entangled and it didn’t take more than a minute to set it free. The second one took me about 30 minutes to set it free. There was at least 5 loops of entanglement on it’s front fin and it was severely hurt with the line about 1 inch deep. The turtle struggled a little bit at first, but it then let me help. After I untangled him, it calmly went down to the deep!
As I return to the dive site, I was told that our friends already picked up the divers back to the boat and that they were prized with a Whale Shark about 10m long, on their last dive of the trip!! And to finish our expedition, on my way back to the boat, with a stunning sunset on the west side of San Benedicto, giant yellow fin tunas jumped out of the water right in front of me! I felt like nature was somehow giving us a reward! I left our group with a lesson: end marine debris, chose wisely what sort of seafood you consume and avoid illegal over-fishing!
– Divemaster Felipe
Felipe & Crew Save Turtles
