Turtles

Ever since I was a little girl, I have loved turtles. Most seven-year-old girls ask their parents for a hamster, puppy, or kitty regularly. Maybe it was because at that point I already had a dog, a cat, a guinea pig, and a rabbit, but for me, it was turtles.
I would beg my parents to take me to the pet store on the weekends, staring into the tanks where the painted turtles sat basking in the artificial sunlight of a heat lamp or swimming through the water with just the tip of their nose poking out. Every time my parents took me to the Boston Aquarium I would make them see the turtle show with me, where Myrtle, a 70-year-old loggerhead, would swim slowly around the top of the tank and a marine biologist would tell us all about her.
When I was in third grade, my father finally gave in to my incessant begging and ordered me two baby turtles from the internet. When the arrived they were just the size of a quarter. I named them Myrtle and Yertle. Unfortunately, turtles are not good travelers as I soon learned. Myrtle only lived for two weeks after she arrived, Yertle even less. I was devastated.
Still, my love for turtles continued. When I went to Hawaii the next year, I was dreadfully disappointed at not seeing a sea turtle while snorkeling, even though I saw fish of every color of the rainbow darting about my feet. In Saint John, USVI in sixth grade I saw an octopus, but was still upset about not coming across a sea turtle.
Finally, my sophomore year, on a trip to Isla Mujeres, an eight-square-mile island off the coast of Cancun, I got my wish. Although Isla doesn't have much, one thing it is famous for is Turtugranja, a sea-turtle sanctuary. It's not very big, just a squat, dark building with a small pen on the outside and a tank next to the ocean. As I entered the building and my eyes adjusted a I saw two large tanks, each separated into three sections. In the tanks on the right swam three generations of turtle, one in each area. They were a strange greyish color. Upon asking one of the workers, I learned that they were albino! They can't survive more than two weeks in the ocean, because without their pigment the sunburn will kill them. Then he reached into the middle tank, which held a turtle about the size of a dinner plate, and scooped it out of the water. "Quieres tenerlo?" he held out the turtle to me. He showed me how to grip its sides so that its flippers wouldn't hit me. I posed for a picture as it flapped its arms and legs, like a bird trying to take flight. It's an awful picture of me, I look demonic with red-eye and a huge grin because I couldn't contain my excitement.
Then the guide took me outside and back in another door, where he showed me turtles smaller than my fist, some without fins or tails, swimming around in a little tank together. He explained to me that all these turtles were unable to survive in the wild, and that I couldn't hold them because they were so fragile. Next he took me to the outdoor pen, where he handed me a painted turtle to hold as well. He motioned with his hands next to his mouth, telling me I should give the turtle a kiss. I smiled and held it up to my lips - my turtle prince.