A Collection of Exceptional Stories, Tips, Recipes, and Memorable Moments from the Ladies and Gentlemen of The Ritz-Carlton
Of all the odd traits of sea turtles, the most joyful is that they’re ticklish. My family learns this as Laura Gross, a young American volunteer aboard a floating turtle hospital off the coast of southern China, hauls one of her patients, a big hawksbill turtle named William Blake, out of his net-bound pool. “When this big guy came in, he was so weak he couldn’t raise his head,” Gross explains as William flaps at the air with his flippers. “We had to keep him in a life jacket until he could lift his head out of the water to breathe.”
Gross wiggles her index finger across William’s neck. “Right here,” she points. William slows his flapping and seems to turn, exposing more of the yellowish green skin behind his head for her to scratch. My daughter, Alice, intrigued, steps forward to rub William’s loose and sensitive skin down where his flipper attaches to his heavy shell. Alice is 13 and was raised as the daughter of a journalist in Beijing, a capital of 16 million people and roughly zero sea turtles, unless you count the ones served in restaurants or pulverized in traditional medicine stores. She’s fascinated by the turtle hospital, and a few minutes later she’s helping brush algae-like growth from William’s shell as Gross keeps up a steady lecture on turtles (their shells pick up vibrations and help them to hear; their heads contain a compass that detects the earth’s magnetic field). …
Click here to read more in the Spring 2012 issue of The Ritz-Carlton Magazine