Loggerhead Turtles in North Carolina 2010

Many people don’t know this about Rafeal but he is quite the turtle enthusiast. No matter what time of day you catch him in, he is always talking about a Turtle. He has all of the random facts you need to know about turtles memorized and isn’t afraid to share them with you. According to what he claims, the Loggerhead Turtle is becoming one of the most rare turtles in the United States. Even though 91.5% of these nearly extinct creatures live with us down here in Florida, Rafael insisted that we go all the way up to North Carolina where the population is only about 1% so he could do some extensive research on these creatures. Usually I’m not much of a turtle fan, actually I’m not a turtle fan at all. The only turtles that I’ve ever had were two small pets that I used to have when I was a kid. They were pretty boring to tell you the truth, but I’d never let Rafael know that I had turtles at pets or I would get the “You are holding wild animals captive” talk with him and I was not ready to hear him. So I quickly gave in and we both decided that we would make our way up to North Carolina to part take in the wild sport of Turtle Watching.

We started off renting a car in Orlando Florida at the Orlando International Airport. There are always so many options to choose from at this location but I can never seem to make up my mind when I go! Usually when renting a car I figure out what I need and go to the first rental car kiosk I need, this time since Rafael got to choose what we “needed” for our trip. Usually we decide what kind of car we want based on the size of the car or the “ball-a-bility (how much we could show off in front of girls) this time Rafael chose the car with two requirements, 1) it must have the same figure as a turtle, and 2) it must have an iPod connection so we could listen to a song by his favorite band ironically named “The Turtles”. We got a gold colored Ford Focus that reminded Rafael of the light brown complexion of the Loggerhead Turtle’s skin, Budget Rental Car is probably one of the easiest places to rent a car from, before we came I checked them out online to see what kind of deals they had and to my surprise they claimed that you could rent a car in 60 seconds! I can’t even tie my shoes in 60 seconds!

After renting the vehicle we made our way up north. The only stop we made in Florida was up in Jacksonville where all we really did was eat a quick meal and continued on the road. I was surprised at how economical this car was, we almost made it through Georgia without having to fill up! Unfortunately we got lost for a little because Rafael typed the wrong address into the GPS so that burned a little gas. Now South Carolina was a different story, we made it through that state without even having to think about filling up, but we stopped in a small town called Whiteville right outside of the state line. We were originally going to go to Plymouth, North Carolina but we heard from locals that North Myrtle beach is the place to go if we’re looking for Loggerheads. Once we got to the beach Rafael got in his SCUBA suit and put his flippers on and took a dive into the water with his camera in hopes to capture a Loggerhead turtle on film before they go extinct and he may never be able to see them again.

After about a half hour of him swimming around underwater he popped up and said “I got something!” he showed me a 30 second clip of a Loggerhead and after that video he was satisfied and wanted to go home. I still cant believe that we drove almost 11 hours to see a 30 second clip of a turtle, but that’s okay because if that’s what he likes to do then that’s what he likes to do. Overall, even though I thought the entire trip was pointless because we rarely did anything fun, I still had a good time taking a nice relaxing drive all the way up to North Carolina to see some new sights and meet some new people. Rafael was extremely happy with his footage and uploaded it to YouTube immediately; by the time we got home he had over 20,000 views. He was happy there were other enthusiasts just like him!