He was scared and immediately gripped his board tighter. Hanging onto it for dear life, he managed to calm down and gazed out at the water just a few feet ahead of him. He let the wave go under him. Something huge was swimming around, so he stayed as still as he could. He wasn’t sure if it was a shark which was the one thing in the ocean that terrified him.

“Eddie, do you see that? What is it, a shark?”

Eddie looked over to the spot Sam was pointing to when suddenly the mystery creature broke through the surface of the water. Its huge head popped up and opened its mouth! In turn Sam opened his mouth in amazement. He could not believe his eyes!

“Wow! Thank God it isn’t a shark! Look at that!” Eddie yelled to Samuel.

It was a sea turtle – just what they had been waiting for every day since summer started! They stayed as still as they could, then slowly both boys held their breath and dropped below the surface to watch it.

Its body was at least thirty inches long. The turtle’s plastron, the bottom of its shell, was a yellowish color. The top of its shell, the carapace, was a dark green and brownish color. There were also some crusty barnacles and seaweed stuck to its shell. Being in Florida, which is in the southeast part of the United States, he believed it was a Green sea turtle. They were the most common type of sea turtle in that area.

Green sea turtles are not named this for the color of their shells, because some turtles of this species have carapaces that are a red or even brown color. They are named green sea turtles for the color of the fat inside their bodies under their shells. The boys had learned all about them in school.

Samuel was amazed as he watched the sea turtle catch a lobster and begin eating it. It took the turtle a few minutes to catch the lobster after chasing it and biting at it but missing it a couple of times. He knew they liked crustaceans – sea animals that had soft shells – such as shrimp, crabs and lobsters. They also like to eat algae, the green stuff that grows in the ocean.

The boys swam to the surface when the sea turtle swam away. They both popped above the surface of the water with huge grins on their faces.

Samuel blurted out, “Eddie, I can’t believe this! I never expected to just see a sea turtle while we were surfing! Did you?”

“No way! I wish we had an underwater camera. It would be great to be able to watch what we just saw over and over again. Maybe I’ll become a photographer and learn how to scuba dive so I can take pictures in the ocean! I would actually like to be able to rescue sea turtles, too!

“Me, too! Why don’t we do that together someday?”

“Sounds good to me, Samuel! Well, we should probably get going. I want to tell my mom about this.”

“Okay. Let’s go.”

To be continued…