Rejuvenate—Turtle Time

“GO!” yelled Annabelle Brooks, lead scientist on the Earthwatch Institute Bahamas sea turtle project. Fins and mask in place, I launched into Eleuthera’s crystalline waters and swam maniacally in pursuit of a speedy, zigzagging green sea turtle—part of my job as an Earthwatch volunteer. Sputtering, victorious, I was soon back on the boat, weighing, measuring and tagging “my” turtle. Other days, we mapped sea grasses and tracked predators as part of Brooks’ study, which aims to designate a protected area based on the findings.
Volunteering with Earthwatch can also mean studying lions in Kenya, bees in the Himalayas, and scuba diving with manta rays on the Great Barrier Reef. That scuba expedition means photographing the underside of mantas while the majestic rays, some with 20-foot wingspans, circle languorously above. Data entry is part of the work, so it’s not all fun in the field. However, if your idea of a good time is helping endangered animals in exotic locales, immerse yourself in an Earthwatch Institute expedition. earthwatch.org