Puerto de Morro Jable Fuerteventura (Part 2)

First thing on Monday morning Nicky went over to talk to the port authorities whilst the rest of us stayed on board completing the breakfast washing up.

Within minutes of her leaving, my phone rang which I expected to be Nicky saying that we needed to move moorings. It was Nicky, but a very excited Nicky, saying that there was a large number of rays swimming in the harbour – come immediately or risk missing them!

We shot off to where Nicky and quite a large crowd of other people were standing. From the dockside we had an amazingly clear view of the rays and, boy, were some of them big! In total we saw about 8; the smallest being about a half metre across and the largest about three times that size, maybe more.

The colours varied from sandy to black and the rays seemed very happy just to swim about next to the harbour wall close to a fishing boat that had recently moored up and offloaded its catch. Presumably they were enjoying the titbits that didn’t quite make it onto the quay.

One of the larger fish even stuck its nose right out of the water, almost climbing up the wall, to get a better look at things. The fishermen tickled the ray under its chin and it was clear that these fish are regular visitors to the harbour when the fishing boats arrive back.

We were all mesmerised watching them swimming around so close to us. They are, by a long way, the largest rays that any of us has seen before.

Eventually we reluctantly returned to our washing up duties and Nicky continued to the marina office to confirm our mooring situation.

The Fuerteventura Sea Turtle Recovery and Conservation Centre    

Nicky’s discussions with the harbour master proved to be very productive. He was quite happy with us staying where we were for 2 nights and the price was extremely reasonable too.

With our mooring confirmed, we were free to visit the Fuerteventura Sea Turtle Recovery and Conservation Centre. Situated right in the port area, the compound is filled with large water tanks some of which we were able to walk around and look into.

As the name suggests, the centre takes in sick and injured turtles. If necessary they are operated on and then nursed until they have recovered and are strong enough to be released. The most common external injuries are caused by the turtles getting tangled in old fishing gear; and this frequently results in partial amputation of the injured turtle’s entangled fin.

The majority of casualties are loggerhead turtles, which feed in the waters around the Canary Islands. As well as the external injuries from old fishing gear, the casualties often have their digestive systems bunged up with fragments of plastic bags. Unfortunately, their diet of octopus, starfish, jellyfish and squid makes them vulnerable to eating plastic. There is far too much plastic rubbish floating around in the sea and to a hungry turtle a plastic bag looks just like a jellyfish or squid.

As well operating as a hospital for sick turtles, the centre is also involved with an ambitious project to re-introduce loggerhead turtle breeding sites to the Canaries. When loggerhead turtles reach maturity, aged between 15 and 25 years, they return to the waters off the beach where they were born to mate, after which the females swim ashore to lay their eggs. A couple of beaches on Fuerteventura have been identified as ideal turtle nesting sites and so, over a couple of breeding seasons, eggs from nests in the Cape Verde islands were buried in identical half metre deep holes on Fuerteventura. The baby turtles hatched and started making their way to the sea but were intercepted by the conservationists who took them back to the centre. Here they were raised until they reached a good, viable size before releasing back into the wild off the planned breeding beaches. It is hoped that when these turtles have matured they will return to the same beach on Fuerteventura to continue the process naturally.

The Turtle Recovery and Conservation Centre made for a very interesting, albeit relatively short, visit, though it was a shame that the staff did not speak any English as even having read all the information boards we had lots more questions we wanted to ask about the centre’s work. Combined with the watching the rays in the harbour first thing though, we certainly felt as if we had had an excellent sea-life centric morning.

Puerto de Morro Jable, Fuerteventura, Canary Island