A harrowing, dangerous adventure: becoming Indiana Jones

It was a warm, sunny day on the barren island. The researcher and her assistant had arrived late that morning and had much to do, for the invaluable lives of infant Malaclemys terrapin specimens must not be wasted. Observing how the hours and heat so pressed in upon them, they divided their work for the morning. The assistant stayed at the base preparing materials for work later in the day, while the researcher mounted her trusty two-wheeled steed in search of the turtle hatchlings.

As she rode to check the nests, a mild breeze blew across the island, lessening the sun's assault. At first the day seemed normal, with few hatchlings and many mosquitoes and flies. Then she reached: the nest.

Two months ago a turtle had laid this nest, so far from all the other nests on the island. The turtle had climbed up the sandy beach on the island, across the dirt and gravel road, and to the sand on the other side of the road. But this was no ordinary sand. This was a sand cliff.

Pardon me one moment to explain this sand cliff. Every visitor of beach or sandbox knows that dry sand has no collective shape and falls, drifts, and blows in every direction under the slightest force. Yet, when you add water and shape it, in a castle, mound, or dyke, it will hold its shape for quite a while, even while dry. It will hold its shape, that is, until a greater force destroys it. So was this sand cliff: constructed of wet sand, then allowed to dry. It withstood the island's fierce weather for years. Dry, loose sand on top, and hardened sand below. A 10-foot, 55-degree incline of sand on top, followed by a 10-foot drop to soft ground and murky water below. The two planes were separated and maintained by a small barricade of grasses and shrubs on the very edge.

Two months ago, this very pregnant mother turtle, seeking the best nesting habitat for her brood, chose this precipice. Two months ago, the researcher and her assistant had slid down the cliff to find the nest and uncover, examine, and re-cover the eggs. Two months later, they placed a cage over it, as with all of the other nests, to catch the hatchlings so they could examine and release them, rather than let them fall 10 feet off the cliff. They went out of their way every day for three weeks to check this nest.

Then, on this sunny, warm, blue-skied day, the researcher went to check the nest, again expecting to see smoothed-over sand and no hatchlings. She dismounted from her two-wheeled steed, climbed off the road to the top of the sand incline, looked, turned away - and looked again.

The sand in the middle of the nest was cracked. Cracked? Hatchlings dig a hole, they don't crack the sand. She looked closer. The sand on the downhill side of the nest was gone and the water was a mere two feet below the nest. In fact, some of the sand under the nest was missing.

Two weeks ago, the engineers had begun filling in this man-made crater, which the cliff took part in surrounding, with mud and water, and the water level had slowly risen. Or it had risen not so slowly, considering that it had soared 14 feet in two weeks in an area of at least 2 two three square miles. The water had eroded away the vegetation beyond and the sand beneath the nest. The edge of the cage hung precipitously over the water, the water that seemed so perniciously bent on plunging the infant turtles, still nestled safely underground, to their precocious death.

These turtles, upon hatching, often stay in their underground nest for some time, nursing upon their internal yolks and growing stronger. Knowing that the turtles were likely alive, hatched, and unaware of their imminent doom, the researcher decided there was only one thing to do: save them.

She loosened her back pack and set it by the road, to lessen her weight on the sliding and collapsing cliff. She slid down the soft incline to within a few feet of the nest, put down the bags that she usually put collected hatchlings in, and removed the top of the cage to begin to dig. Unfortunately, she couldn't reach far enough. She slid closer. The cliff started to collapse. She scrambled backwards as carefully as possible.

"I should really have someone here, with a rope around me, to make sure I don't fall in," she thought, wondering which other worker on the island she ought to call. Then she realized, "Oh, crud. The radio's in my backpack. By the road."

Not wanting to turn back, for fear of both the nest's demise and her own, she decided to risk it and try to rescue the turtles. On the other side of the nest some more sand had fallen off the cliff, creating what seemed like a somewhat solid mound of sand. She scooted over to the other side of the nest and put her foot on the sand. It wasn't solid, at all.

She started to slide off the edge of the cliff.

Minorly panicked, she really wished she had the radio, then leaned back to keep from falling so quickly. Then she noticed that one of the shrubs from the edge of the cliff had fallen onto the pile of sand at least a day ago. No matter when it fell, it was there. She stretched her foot, rested her toe on the woody stem of the shub and was safe. For now.

Balanced on the stem and within reach of the nest, she began to dig carefully, so as not to catapult the hatchlings into the deep that extended mere inches below her. Digging, not finding, sand sliding away from the nest, and then her fingers finally grazed the shell of a hatchilng. Success! Or the beginning of it, maybe. She pulled out the first hatchling, looked around for the bags, stretched; yet they were out of reach. What to do with the hatchlings now? Her hat would slide down the hill. She needed her hands. Aha! The aluminum ring around the nest; but if she removed that, then more of the cliff would crumble away.

That was a risk she'd have to take.

And take it she did. She pulled up the ring, gingerly turned behind her (remember, she was standing on a stem on loose sand over an abyss) and pushed the ring into the sand, then set the hatchling inside. Sand slid into the hole she had already dug, filled it, and overflowed, falling over the edge. Time to dig, and quickly, before she lost them all.

Carefully, quickly she dug. One, two, five, eight. Dig more, dig more - her fingers arrived at one turtle still in its shell, still attached to its yolk, apparently dead. She looked more closely - what was this? A second turtle attached to the yolk - twins! Possibly siamese turtles! This turtle, though dead, had to come back with her, in the name of science and complete fascination. Gently placing the creature away from the other hatchlings, she continued to dig. Twelve hatchlings in all, safe in the ring.

Now it was time for all of them to return to solid ground. Easier said than done.

She again turned around carefully, slowly, on her stem, to face the ever-eroding bank, because there was no way she was going to scoot backwards up that cliff without pitching face-first into the water. Only now did she realize that she was fully over the edge of the cliff, supported above the murky abyss by only a 1 1/2 inch stem of a dead shrub. "WHY didn't I think to keep my radio?!" she chided herself. As yet adrenaline was coursing more heartily than fear and her true peril was, thankfully, not consuming her thoughts.

Climbing up a sand cliff is like being one of those lizards that walks on water - you have to go fast to get anywhere, as slow movements allow the sand to slip away. Such speed, however, puts you at far greater risk of falling. There was nought for it, though. She had to climb.

She tried to climb using her feet and pushing up with her hands. With nary a foothold or a handhold, she slid downward with a cascade of sand and quickly returned her foot to the stem.

Determined to get up that cliff, for she had to, she dug her hands into the sand. Now I have no idea what use that was meant to be, since the sand would merely slide. But what other recourse did she have? She dug in her hands and leaned forward a bit, to displace her weight, and again tried to climb and pull herself upwards with her hands embedded in sand. She slid.

"What do I do if I fall in," she mused, "since no one knows I'm out here and there's no shallow spot to climb out?"

She didn't want to answer that question, however. So she dug in her hands and tried to climb with her feet, her knees, her shins, her elbows. Again and again. And again.

Until finally...finally...

She was back on the soft sand incline.

She turned over and scooted behind the ring of hatchlings, putting them gently into the hatchling bag. Twelve turtles saved from a watery, foodless, mud-engulfed death. Plus a specimen fit for a museum, even if it be it only the Mutter museum.

And yet she was still mere feet from the edge, with a metal ring, chicken wire, and survey flags from the nest, plus herself and the turtles, and they all had to return to the road. And there was no way she was going to be able to come back down for a single one of those items and return to the road alive; no, she could not make a second trip back from the crumbilng, sliding, eroding cliff. The cliff would not sustain the movement of two trips.

Hardly checked by this restraint, the researcherthrew the wire, the ring, and the flags one by one up to the road. Turtles, however, cannot be thrown. Or at least they shouldn't be. And the dead twins could not be left behind. She had only one choice.

Turtles in one hand, the specimen in the other, she gently pushed up from the sand and made a dash for it, the cliff breaking under her feet.

She didn't look back until she got to the edge of the road. And then she laughed, the relieved laugh of someone who's made it out of danger alive - maybe even the mocking laugh in the face of danger - but moreso the grateful laugh of someone whose belt God must have been holding onto to keep her from plunging into the abyss.

She piled the wire, the metal, the flags on the side of the road, to pick up another day. She placed the turtles in her saddlebasket and carefully closed the lid over them.

Caked in sand, she mounted her two-wheeled steed and rode off into the noonday sun and mild breeze, laughing and incredulous and emboldened, to save more turtles.