The entire Spring Break 2022 Greece team began on the agenda of events for the trip. After a delicious Greek breakfast, we all met for about an hour to discuss and learn about refugees and how they are affected in the present day. After our meeting, the group had a couple of minutes to unpack their luggage and change to prepare for the main event of the first full day in Greece, visiting sea turtles!
We walked from the hotel through the neighborhood of Glyfada, getting glimpses of the beautiful Saronic Gulf shoreline. After about 10 minutes of walking and picture taking we finally reached the Archelon- “The sea turtle prevention society of Greece”. A nice set up oriented on some old train cars turned into shops, information areas, and most importantly, the entryway to learning about sea turtles. We first came across the size of different turtles and how big they can actually be. The leather back turtle can even grow up to three meters head to tail!
We continued down the walkway as our guide explained to us how Injuries that plague sea turtles are often caused by humans, accidental or for sport. Sea turtles often sustain injuries to their shell, head/beak area, and their flippers. Mickey, named after the mouse, is a turtle that lives in the shelter who unfortunately had lost both of his front flippers. Although as we would see, that did not stop him from being one of the most active of all the turtles we saw. At the sea turtle rescue center we were greeted with volunteers in action, filling tubs, feeding turtles, trying to give them the best chance at rehabilitation and survival. Each turtle was swimming happily in the small tubs. Especially Mickey, who seemed to ooze life out of him onto all others who saw him.
We learned about how temperature is a very important factor in sea turtles’ well being. We learned how the warmer the temperature the eggs where the eggs are laid, the more likely they are to be female, as well as how sea turtles can survive anything warmer than 10 degrees Celsius, anything else being a danger to their well being. After saying our goodbyes to the turtles we continued on the walkway. Stoping for what was probably the most heart breaking part of the trip. We learned that only 0.1 percent of sea turtle eggs hatched reach the sea and are able to survive. It was crazy to put into perspective that animals that are born the size of one of our ears can grow to be an entire meter taller than the biggest of humans.
The tour wrapped up by going into the information/gift shop area learning about how turtles who swallow hooks and plastic can have stunted growth of their lungs, which can prevent them from being healthy and thriving. We got to see a mode of what sea turtle eggs really look like. And we were presented the opportunity to donate through purchases of sea turtle merchandise.
After an educational and intriguing tour of Greece’s only turtle protection society, we walked through the more metropolitan area of Glyfada, seeing huge stores and markets, as well as the largest McDonald’s any of us had ever seen. We got to see most of the nooks and crannies of Glyfada, as well as see trains and bikes of the sort driving through town. We finally headed back to the Hotel London, making it back to enjoy a great lunch and another informational and interesting meeting.
The crew went to get some rest before a night of competition, to see who had the greatest grasp of all Greek culture. The “Monkey Whales” came out on top, and we ended up getting a lesson in the Greek alphabet, dialogue, and putting phrases together. We all were pretty worn out so we all called it a night to prepare for day number two….a cruise around many Greek islands!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment