Carlos Pena?

Bycatch (Chapter 13)

Kara's POV

For the first hour of the boat trip some people were getting sea sick. I don't know what to call him, boat driver, Captain? I don't know, but anyways he truned the boat around and took the sea sick people back. Thank the Lord that sea sickness does not run in my genes.

I loved the smell of the salty air and the mist from the sea. Then I was looking at the water. It was so beautiful even though, it was a very dark shade of blue. I saw something floating in the water. Some nets? Seaweed? Wait, no that's a sea turtle, Leatherback. OH MY GOSH!!!!!!! I started hyperventilating. People were probably staring at me. I ran into the supplies room and got a pocket knife and a life jacket. The pocket knife was nothing major, only about 2 inches long. I ran to the edge of the boat and jumped into the cool water. I swam as fast as I could to the struggling turtle. I grabbed the net a little harder than I should have. The Leatherback kept struggling.

"Calm down. It's okay." I said softly to the sea turtle. Finally, it stopped moving. I cut all of the pieces of the net. I was about to let it go when I heard a male voice.

"Don't release it" I turned around and it was my instructor, along with all of the students and the Captain staring at me. I looked from him to the Leatherback, back to him.

"Why?" I asked. He held up tags that marine biologists used to track animals. "Oh."  The water suddenly got cold and I  realized that Great Whites live in this area, so I swam back to the boat as quickly as I could with the living turtle in my arms.

The instructor took about 5 minutes to teach us how to put tags on turtles. Finally, when he was done I got to release the turtle. He explained that sea turtles come to the same beach as they were born at to lay their eggs every year, but I already knew that. We are going to watch them lay their eggs tonight after the boat ride and a few weeks later we'll watch them hatch.

For lunch everyone had a sandwich, chips and water. I sat by Carlos.

"Hi." I said

"Hey" after a few bites of his sandwich he spoke again. "Why did you go into the water to get that Leatherback?"

"First, it was hot and second, I needed a swim. Well, actually I was panicking."

"Yeah. We saw you hyperventilating over there." we laughed. "You could have used a long pool to get the turtle." he paused "And you know great whites live around here, right?"

"Of corse I do." I took a drink of my water. "After I was in the water for a few minutes." I smiled and we both laughed again.

"Do you want to go out with me?" he asked.

"Sure." he put his arm around me and I could feel his arm shoot up into the air really fast. I smiled. I don't know why I was not screaming and jumping right now. My cousin Julie, who is also obsessed with Carlos will be so jealous.