Welcome Baby Sea Turtles!

At the start of this year, six baby green sea turtles arrived at the Maui Ocean Center from Sea Life Park Hawaii, Oahu, where they were born on July 15, 2011. All from the same clutch, the six-month old turtles weighed a little over one pound and were about five inches in width. A traditional Hawaiian ceremony to bless and officially welcome them to the Aquarium was held on January 20th. (Alas! I forgot to attend as I was engrossed in a project I was working on... oh well...)

This month the Maui Ocean Center held a contest to name one of the baby turtles. The aquarist team provided the traits and behaviors of each turtle to help in choosing the perfect name.

The names were to be in Hawaiian and include a definition of the name and an explanation of how and why that name was chosen to be submitted.

So I got out my Hawaiian-English / English-Hawaiian dictionary and started thumbing through the pages...

Turtle #1:      Solid; the largest turtle.
Turtle #2:      Carefree and spends most of its time underwater.
Turtle #3:      Mellow, but holds its own.
Turtle #4:      Voracious; eats quickly and always wants more. Not to be messed with!
Turtle #5:      Active, small but spunky.
Turtle #6:      Only eats what it wants, when it wants.

On Tuesday - appropriately the 1st day of Spring - I received an email congratulating me on having chosen a name for a turtle. I laughed out loud when I saw which turtle I had connected with! I suppose the fruit doesn't fall far from the tree - or perhaps, more appropriately - the turtle doesn't swim too far from the shore.

The name I submitted and in turn that was chosen was ANA'OLE - which means, "insatiable, never satisfied; without equal, unsurpassed". So turtle #4 is my little dude. I'll get to see him, and the rest, when they gather the winners for a special behind the scenes turtle encounter at the Ocean Center! Guaranteed I'll be posting pictures as soon as I can!

On a side note, the Never-Ending project should be wrapping up tomorrow... so I promise to publish a design related post on my other collection that was released at the end of last month - for some it will be new... and for others... a bit of deja vu!

And if you're as fond of these little critters as I am, don't forget to check out my baby sea turtle (or honu in Hawaiian) print Surf's Up! by clicking on the "Sea Turtles" label below the post.