By: Arabella

While cruising around in the big blue sea heading towards Indonesia, we bumped across a turtle floating there. The turtle was unfazed by us coming so near that it seemed as though it was dead or at least paralyzed. I was so curious about it so i asked to turn around and check on it, see if it was okay. 

When we came back around, i saw what looked like a big chunk of seaweed or algae stuck in the turtles throat, chocking or suffocating it. On closer inspection, it also seemed to have been caught up in some fishing line, enabling it to move around freely. I was contemplating on jumping in and untangling it from this man-made mess it had gotten itself into until i started to see that the “fishing line” wasn’t one long line but several soft and gooey looking tentacles. I realized then that jumping in to help save this poor turtle was not one of my best ideas. 

The “seaweed and algae” was the head of a jellyfish and the “fishing line” surrounding the turtle was the stingers of it. After discovering this, my mind was even more confused. Turtles are immune to the stingers and poison in a jellyfish because of little spikes of keratin in their scales so why wasn’t the turtle moving? Why did it have no reaction to the boat? 

We were thinking about any and every way we could possibly save it (if it even needed saving), and none would have worked to the turtles best interest. Sadly, we had to leave it alone since there was nothing we could even do. Goodbye turtle, we all pray that you will survive.