Turtle Riding on the Great Barrier Reef

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Celmara Pocock1 Turtle Riding on the Great Barrier Reef

ABSTRACT

Turtle riding was once a popular activity among holidaymakers at the Great Barrier Reef off the northeast coast of Australia. In the first half of the twentieth century. it was a significant way for tourists to engage with living marine life.The turtle breeding season offered tourists an opportunity to see female turtles emerge from the sea and come ashore to nest and lay their eggs. They could also witness emerging hatchlings scuttle from shore to sea. This sea-land-sea transformation facilitated unique forms of human- nonhuman animal interaction and was integral to visitor affection for, and affinity with, sea turtles.

Once on her back on the beach, Mrs. Turtle is helpless, and can either be used for soup or steaks, or kept in position for a turtle riding party in the morning.

Rather than encounter this danger, she will exhaust every effort to get back to the water, and it is as well to keep clear of those angry spurred ﬂippers while you are trying to tip over that lively three hundred weight.2 Even scientists cannot refrain from the frivolity of turtle riding—a sport which requires a considerable degree of skill and pertinacity.

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The shiny, convex shell affords scant security, and the motion is rather like the gait of a camel. the [sic] correct technique is to grasp with the ﬁngers the edge of the shell immediately above the nape of the neck, sit as near the centre of the back as possible, and hold tight. The turtle does the rest—not always to the satisfaction of the rider. In the water the progress is swifter, but the feat more hazardous. The head of the turtle must be kept up, and a favorite joke played upon the begin- ner is to persuade him or her to give the mount a rest by allowing it to assume a horizontal position, with head submerged. Immediately this happens, the turtle gets the chance she wants, and makes a swift dive to the cool depths of her native ocean, leaving her rider to scramble out unaided. (Wigmore, 1932a)3

The little-known activity of turtle riding as described in this account was a popular pastime for those visiting the Great Barrier Reef in the early twentieth century. This description, like others of its time, suggests that the practice was to some degree a fair competition between nonhuman animal and human and that the turtles suffered little, if any, physical harm. While the practice may now appear bizarre and even inhumane, animal-human relationships changed signiﬁcantly in the twentieth century and should be considered in their social and cultural context (Franklin, 1999; Fukuda, 1997). In this paper, I examine archival sources to reconstruct turtle riding in its historic context and suggest that it represents an expression of interest in turtles and their environment.

Plentiful Turtles

Dakin, (1950) writes of an “exciting form of entertainment”:

Some of the highly decorative pamphlets issued by the tourist bureaux show young men and bright young things “riding” turtles on the shores of the Capricorn Islands. The riders do not often stay long on the backs of the animals when in the water, but this exciting form of entertainment is a fact nevertheless, although it once brought a famous traveller, Louis de

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Rougemont, into the world’s limelight as a supposed liar of the highest order.... (p. 47)

The 1899 publication of The Adventures of Louis De Rougemont as Told by Himself is not as well known today as some others of its genre, but once it was part of the popular imaginary. Included in his exaggerated tale of shipwreck is an account of riding a turtle at sea (de Rougemont, 1899, p. 63). Frequent references to this episode in writings about Reef holidays suggest that it greatly appealed to people’s imaginations.4 De Rougemont’s rescue by a turtle speaks directly to romanticized ideas of an island paradise in which bountiful natural resources sustain shipwreck survivors (Pocock, 2005; Pocock, Collett, & Knowles, In prep).

Turtles are drawn into this utopian discourse because turtle soup is regarded as a great delicacy in European cuisine, and turtles were bountiful in Reef waters. When Captain James Cook ﬁrst navigated the Reef, botanist Joseph Banks recorded in his journal that there was “a plenty of Turtle hardly to be credited, every shoal swarmd [sic] with them” (Banks, 1896).

In the ensuing colonial period, the abundance of turtle was identiﬁed as having great commercial potential. The Queensland Commissioner of Fisheries, William Saville-Kent, (Saville-Kent, 1893) and displays at International Exhibitions in the late nineteenth century promoted turtle shell and turtle soup production as potentially lucrative industries (McKay, 1998; Pocock et al., In prep). In December 1904, a lease was granted to establish a turtle cannery on North West Island in the Capricorn Group. In 1925, the Australian Turtle Company was established on nearby Heron Island (Ogilvie, 1977, p. 3). These factories produced canned turtle soup from green turtles (Chelonia mydas) and a small amount of shell from hawksbill turtles (Eretmochelys imbricata) [Neil, 1997; Ogilvie, 1977; Whitley, 1925].

The turtle factories also attracted some of the earliest Great Barrier Reef tourists. In the 1920s and early 1930s, holidaymakers reached the Reef by accompanying scientiﬁc expeditions (Barr, 1990; Pocock, 2003). There were very few facilities on the islands and the vast majority of visitors slept out- doors or camped in tents. In these rudimentary conditions, the “somewhat ramshackle” (Napier, 1928b, p. 133) sheds that housed the turtle canneries

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offered basic amenities. During periods when the cannery was closed, the factory buildings were used as a base where holidaymakers held concerts, danced, and listened to lectures and radio broadcasts (McNeill, 1932). When in operation, the canneries were a tourist attraction in their own right. Just as tourists on the Australian mainland visited wharfs, mines, dams, and agricultural operations, the turtle canneries celebrated colonial industrial development and visitors observed the whole process with interest (Gilbert, 1926; Napier, 1928b, p. 133; Pollock, 1926).

The factories also provided visitors with fresh turtle soup. The lack of facilities on the islands and the lengthy duration of visits meant that fresh pro- duce had to be procured locally. Fish was an important staple, and turtle provided an alternative. Turtle soup, as an exemplar of ﬁne cuisine, was particularly welcomed by some members of these expeditions (Roughley, 1936, p. 75; The Sun, 1931; Whitley, 1925). However, it did not appeal to everyone, and some Australians regarded it as an acquired palate (Banﬁeld, 1908, p. 134; “Whampoa,” 1930a, p. 21). This lack of a local appetite for turtle soup is cited as a contributing factor in the eventual closure of the factories (Ogilvie, 1977, p. 4). However, the demise of the factories is more readily attributed to a dramatic decline in the local turtle population.

Concern for Turtles

The conception of the Reef islands as endlessly abundant was substantiated by early observations of turtle reproduction. Many popular accounts of the Great Barrier Reef include descriptions of turtle breeding, which invariably stress the large number of turtles coming ashore and the enormous size of egg clutches. This gave the impression that turtle numbers were constantly replenished and even increased. However, as turtles were observed over a longer period, it became apparent that many hatchlings were vulnerable to natural predation and that a turtle takes decades to mature and return to reproduce. In some instances, the method of procuring turtles for the factories exacerbated this impact when female turtles were overturned before they had even laid their eggs (The Times, 1935). After several more seasons of observing turtles, it was eventually realized that an individual turtle may lay several clutches of eggs in a single season and that the initial estimation of turtle numbers had been seriously overestimated (Dakin, 1950, pp. 48-57).

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However, turtle numbers had declined rapidly long before this was realized. By the summer of 1928, the impacts, if not all the reasons for them, were painfully apparent. The turtle cannery on Heron Island experienced difficulties procuring sufficient turtles, and hunters visited neighboring islands to main- tain the factory operations. The decline in turtle numbers was attributed directly to the canneries (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, 1926, p. 22; “Whampoa”, 1930a).

It was not only the impacts on turtle numbers that concerned people. Visitors also were troubled by the treatment of the turtles. In particular, the practice of turning turtles on their backs was seen as causing unnecessary suffering. One of four women naturalists to visit the Capricorn Islands in 1925 carried “buckets of water to throw over green-back turtles which had been turned on their backs by turtle-hunters and left in the broiling sun on the beach” (Gilbert, 1926). Similarly, journalist Napier (1928b) regarded this practice, if not the slaughter of the animals, as cruel:

It is one of the most dreadful things about the usage of animals for human consumption that their dispatch seems always to be associated with such unnecessary cruelty—or what appears to the ordinary man to be unnecessary, anyway. . . .; and here in this small industry it seems that the same insensibility to animal suffering must prevail. It is a pitiful thing to see these poor beasts some hours after their reversion, their blood-injected eyes filmed with mucus, their strained and stiffened flippers flapping hopelessly in their attempts to right themselves, their heavy sighs audibly expressing the torture they are enduring. Fortunately at N.W. Islet the manager of the factory is more humane than most, and keeps the turtles in their anguish as short a time as possible. Indeed, on some occasions his men kill the beasts outright without turning them over at all. (pp. 134, 135)

Turtle Propinquity

While visitors deplored the treatment of turtles in the production of soup, such sentiment was seldom extended to other Reef animals. Tourism in the early twentieth century was intertwined with scientiﬁc discovery. Holiday- makers assisted the naturalists to gather specimens of ﬂora and fauna and

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made numerous collections of their own. Fishes, shells, and corals were boiled and preserved. Dissections were common and included small and large animals. During one of the earliest tourist expeditions to North West Island, a turtle and turtle eggs were dissected (Gilbert, 1926; Whitley, 1925, p. 10). These collections and dissections were undertaken in an effort to understand the marine environment. At a time when little was known of underwater life, often these methods were the only way in which people could observe marine species (Pocock, In press a). Turtles offered an alternative mode of human observation and engagement.

Unlike most marine creatures, turtles are comfortable in the intertidal zone and in the presence of humans. Consequently, visitors could engage with them in non-fatal ways. The nesting grounds, in particular, provided a unique opportunity to observe turtles at close quarters. Reef expeditions often were timed for the annual summer holidays, which coincided with large numbers of turtles coming ashore. The relatively short incubation period, combined with lengthy stays on the island, meant that it was sometimes possible for visitors to observe both egg laying and the emergence of hatchlings in a single season.

Human interest in these activities is attested by the numerous accounts in brochures, newspapers, magazines, photographs, documentary ﬁlms, and home movies.5 Scientiﬁc knowledge of turtles grew from these observations. Even today, however, relatively little is known of turtles between the time they hatch and when they return to nest (Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, 2005). The emergence of turtles from the sea gave visitors the opportunity to see living marine creatures on land. Here these quick deep sea swimmers were easily accessible to humans. More than this, turtles seemed to invite human interaction, remaining remarkably undeterred by their presence:

I cannot help feeling amused at my first encounter with a turtle. I had been spending much time stalking various animals on the reef, such as fishes and things, and almost invariably they would dash for cover at the first sign of my approach, then one day I saw a short distance away what appeared to be a smooth, dome-shaped rock projecting just above the surface of the water in a shallow pool. Approaching more closely I saw it was the upper part of the shell of a large green turtle. Fortunately it was facing away from me, so I stole back and procured a camera. Fearing that I might frighten it

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I crept along cautiously on tiptoe to what I thought was a safe distance and secured a photograph. Having obtained one picture I made bold to creep along to get a side view; this it didn’t seem to mind, so I photographed it from the front. Having depicted it from all angles I was not so much concerned whether it moved away, so I entered the water in order to obtain a more intimate picture of its head, and, approaching to within a couple of feet of it I was focusing the camera when it slowly opened its eyes and without displaying the slightest interest in me promptly went to sleep again! (Roughley, 1936, pp. 74, 75)

The turtle breeding season therefore enabled visitors to observe living marine animals without necessitating their death. These encounters also led visitors to interact with turtles in ways that extended beyond mere observation or culinary and scientiﬁc interests.

Turtle Riding

An article from “The Queenslander” (1925) describes an event at the beach:

A tour of adventure was then commenced round the beach. In a moment, while hurriedly walking through the heavy sand a large turtle was observed crawling quickly on to a small grassy mound. Immediately a yell of excitement rent the air and we were all running frantically along in a curious frame of mind to get a glimpse of the strange looking animal. Some one then jumped upon the turtle, and another cried out excitedly: “Roll him over”; whereupon a very enthusiastic youth secured a big stick which he used as a lever, and after considerable exertion on the part of a number of the party the turtle was overturned. The animal flung his flipper viciously to and fro, flapping them across the body and gesticulating comically. When given freedom the turtle hurriedly crawled back into the water from which he had come. Altogether we discovered a dozen or more turtles, some of which were seen scooping large holes, evidently for the purpose of laying eggs, these being subsequently covered over with sand, and it is said they hatch out on their own account. I was informed that the larger turtles, which it is asserted are very strong and weigh as much as two hundred-weight, could easily carry a person some distance, and to test the validity of this statement I “Tod Sloaned”6 a big greenback, as if riding a racehorse, with

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my knees well up over the forepart of the shell. My mount careered wildly forward, stopping occasionally to breathe. When near the water I dismounted, and the turtle quickly entered the water and swam away. (p. 11)

Close encounters between people and turtles fostered the practice of turtle riding, an activity described by many holidaymakers and scientists as a “thrill” (The Sunday Sun and Guardian, 1932b; The World, 1932b), and a source of great enjoyment:

The visitors bathed twice daily in the warm and clear water of the lagoon, while turtle riding was frequently indulged in, and caused much merri- ment. (The Sydney Morning Herald, 1925) Who shall forget the hilarity before sun-up as everyone had their turn riding the turtles in the cool and lovely sea? (“Whampoa,” 1930b, p. 35) The members amused themselves with ﬁshing and turle riding [sic], and gathering coral and shells on the reef. (The Sydney Morning Herald, 1933)

Central to their sense of fun and thrill were the inversion and reversion of the power relationship between people and turtles.

It is a comparatively easy matter to ride a turtle on the sand—unless, indeed, you emulate one of our ladies and attempt to do it sitting “side-saddle,” when the result of a sudden shufﬂed turn on the part of the steed is apt to prove more appealing to the spectators than to the rider. But to ride a turtle after she has entered the sea, and has got a good gait on, takes some doing. Only one or two of our party managed to master the art at all. (Napier, 1928b, pp. 139-141) De Rougemont’s exploits were remembered, and we tried turtle rides, with less success, but more fun perhaps, that Louis enjoyed, according to his famous story. Our rides were brief and exciting. We crept upon sleeping turtles and made seats on their carapaces. Thus surprised, they scrambled over the sand, plowing quaint furrows with their ﬂippers, and gained the lagoon. Once in fairly deep water, the turtle won the game. A dive unseated the rider, who splashed ashore for another little joyride to the sea. (Barrett, 1930, p. 375)

Accounts suggest that visitors took the opportunity to ride turtles when they came upon them on shore. During the breeding season when large numbers

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of turtles came on shore, the animals were mounted as they returned to the sea. On other occasions, turtle riding was planned as a group event and turtles were sometimes kept on their backs until the visitors were ready to ride them.7 In all instances, turtle riding is characterized by the change in speed and power as the person and turtle moved from sand to sea.8 The movement on sand is slow and cumbersome, but once in the ocean the turtle regains her freedom and strength and moves quickly away from her rider. The hilarity and thrill is at the expense of the human rider (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Bob Embury aboard a turtle, Great Barrier Reef c. 1932. © Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales

Regardless of how turtles were captured or ridden, visitors did not regard the activity as detrimental to the turtles. For instance, Napier (1928) who considered overturning turtles for soup as unnecessarily cruel, simply suggests that “as [the turtles] raised no verbal objection [to turtle riding], it is to be presumed that they had none” (pp. 139, 140). This is obviously a ﬂip- pant remark, but there is little else to suggest that visitors or others considered turtle riding to be inhumane. On the contrary, it seems that everyone

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participated and enjoyed turtle riding. More signiﬁcantly, there appears to have been no voiced opposition to turtle riding in the 1920s or in any later decade of its practice.

The Decline of Turtle Riding

Although the turtle canneries raised a number of concerns about turtle numbers and turtle suffering, these concerns in no way ameliorated the activity of turtle riding. The canneries ceased operation in the late 1920s, but turtle riding continued to be popular until the 1950s and possibly into the early 1960s.9 Many written descriptions of the Reef are illustrated with photographs of turtle riding even if the activity is not mentioned in the accompanying text. See photographs accompanying the following publications: (Barrett, (1930, p. 362; The Sun, 1932; The Sunday Sun and Guardian, 1932a; The World, 1932a, p. 9; 1932b; Whampoa, 1930a, p. 22; Wigmore, 1932b). However, the occurrence of turtle riding drops markedly in the second half of the twentieth century. Contemporaneous images of turtle riding are not promoted as part of Reef holidays after the 1950s. Rather, the focus of advertising shifts to “Paciﬁc” island resorts (Pocock, 2005) and a new range of water-based activities.

The 1960s are associated with a general change in human relationships with animals (Franklin, 1999). The latter part of the decade also witnessed a dramatic rise in conservation concerns in Australia, and a key protest was cen- tered around a campaign to conserve the Great Barrier Reef (Bowen & Bowen, 2002; Love, 2000; Wright, 1977).

However, the decline in turtle riding cannot simply be attributed to a greater environmental awareness. Early twentieth century visitors went to the Reef as professional or enthusiast naturalists to participate in scientiﬁc discovery. The underwater life of the Reef was a particularly exciting aspect of Reef holidays, as it continues to be today. However, unlike contemporary tourists, early visitors did not dive or snorkel. Although they used the sea to bathe and swim, they did not observe Reef life from within the water. Instead, fully dressed, they picked their way over the exposed reefs at low tide, to peer at life in the remnant pools.

A desire to understand and view underwater life more closely and to represent it to others led visitors to amass vast collections of corals, shells and

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other specimens (Pocock, In press a). These activities continued to be wide- spread and popular up until the 1970s. Ironically, this desire to know, encounter, and share experiences of underwater life inevitably meant death for the animals in question. Turtles, on the other hand, provided opportunities for visitors to engage with living marine creatures.

The decline in turtle riding coincides with the development of new ways to engage with marine life. During the 1950s, underwater viewing chambers were constructed on Green Island, near Cairns and Hook Island in the Whitsundays. These submerged tanks allowed visitors to view the living reef through small portholes and provided an early means to observe reef life from beneath the water surface.

In the same decade, scuba diving prototypes were developed. These were experimental, expensive, and only available to a handful of professional or celebrity divers and photographers. Nevertheless, the new technology was safer and easier to use than earlier equipment, and it came to revolutionize human experiences of the living Reef.

Snorkeling and diving became popular in the late 1960s and 1970s, and an increasing number of visitors gained direct access to underwater life. Greater visual access was also enhanced through a growing range of photographic technologies that brought colorful, animated underwater scenes to the surface. These included intimate and vibrant images never before seen (Pocock, In press a). Thus by the end of the twentieth century, snorkeling was a rou- tine tourist activity at the Reef and sophisticated forms of photography brought the living reef to the surface. It is these changes that can be linked to the decline in turtle riding.

Discussion

Turtles and turtle riding played an important role in developing human knowledge of the Great Barrier Reef in the early twentieth century. In con- trast with other marine animals who die when removed from their aquatic habitat, turtles are adapted to short periods of life on land. However cumbersome turtles might appear on the sand, their emergence from the sea is part of their natural life cycle. Turtles thus bridge the gap between terrestrial and marine habitats. This is most apparent during the breeding season

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when turtles emerge from the sea in large numbers in a regular and patterned way.

For human spectators, this demonstrates a signiﬁcant transformation of turtles from marine to terrestrial animals. It also represents a reversal of human interactions with the living Reef, where land-based humans make short for- ays into the marine environment. As such, turtles represent a complementary part to that of human interaction with the marine environment. The sea— land—sea cycle characterized not only the life cycle of turtles but also human relationships with turtles and marine life in general. This was especially pro- nounced in the ﬁrst part of the twentieth century when visitors spent little time in the sea and almost none fully submerged.

Turtle riding was particularly important because it enabled humans and turtles to share their respective transformations. The act of turtle riding produced human and turtle as one (Game, 2001) and facilitated a shared human- animal transformation. Although the relationship encapsulated power imbalances, there were two sets of inequalities that complemented one another, so that overall the competition (relationship) could be constructed as equal. Much of the pleasure gained from turtle riding lay in the inversion of power on land and sea. Although the turtle was slow and cumbersome on the sand and humans had an easy ride, these roles were quickly reversed when the turtle reached the water. Ultimately, captured turtles conquered their riders and escaped to the ocean depths. Although favoring one and then the other, the competition was seen as fair because the disadvantage to the turtle on land was reversed once they reached the sea—ultimately, the human rider was at a disadvantage. Thus, the relationship respects the turtles in their natural environment and represents a human attempt to enter that environment as marine animal.

In its original form, turtle riding facilitated an engagement between humans and turtles that enabled humans to participate in the marine environment. Turtle riding thus fulﬁlled a human desire to understand the underwater marine world through direct participation. Many studies of human-animal relationships emphasize the desire of people to distinguish themselves from animals and hence to dominate and control them (Franklin, 1999; Ingold, 1994; Mullin, 1999). At the Great Barrier Reef, humans are clearly distin- guished from marine animals simply because they cannot live in water. The

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underwater is alien to everyday human existence; so the division does not require any maintenance. In this context, people can give free expression to their own capacity to be animal or other. More than being “like us,” turtles allowed people to explore the possibility of being “like them.” This is akin to Taussig’s (1993) notion of mimesis in which different peoples imitate one another. The history of human underwater engagement is testament to a great desire to experience this world as one of the animals who inhabit it. Many films and accounts of the Reef from the 1950s to the 1960s emphasize the equipment and capacity of humans to transform themselves into marine creatures. This manifests in the present day through diving and snorkeling, particularly the donning of thick rubber (skins), flippers (fins), aqualungs (gills), and brightly colored swimming costumes (skins and scales) to enter the world as a more streamlined, marine animal than we really are. However, before the advent of such technologies, people gained an understanding of the marine world through enactment. Although turtles do not share the same degree of interdependency as humans and domesticated animals (Game, 2001), turtle riding provided a vehicle through which humans could experience the marine world by becoming part of a marine animal. This was not about imitating turtles but of being as one with a turtle through riding. Riding turtles was distinct from other human interaction with marine life because, in traveling from the sand to the sea, riders sensed the strength, agility, and adaptation of turtles as they regained their environment.

Improved access to the underwater Reef through photography and other technologies appears to have displaced turtle riding as a Reef practice. Tourist encounters with the Reef at the end of the twentieth century can be characterized predominantly by visual consumption (Pocock, In press b). Nevertheless, to a lesser and greater degree, snorkeling and diving have effected the transformation of humans from terrestrial to marine creatures. This is a more essen- tial transformation than that facilitated by turtle riding. Although turtles continue to be a delight for many tourists, turtle riding is no longer neces- sary to human understanding of the living marine reef.

* Celmara Pocock, University of Tasmania

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Notes

1 Correspondence should be addressed to Celmara Pocock, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Tourism Programme, University of Tasmania, Locked Bag 1340, Launceston, Tasmania, 7250, Australia. E-mail: [email protected]. Research for this paper was funded by the CRC Reef, James Cook University and the University of Tasmania. 2 A hundredweight (abbreviated to cwt.) equals 112 pounds (50.8 kilograms). 3 This quotation and four additional cites were taken from a series of archival press- collections in the Australian Museum, Sydney. No original page numbers were shown for these cites. Additional cites are The Sydney Morning Herald (1933), The Sun, 1932; The Sunday Sun and Guardian, 1932a; and Wigmore, 1932b. Complete information may be found in Reference List entries. 4 A number of articles make direct reference to de Rougement (Bank Notes, 1932; Barrett, 1930, p. 375; Dakin, 1950, p. 47; Napier, 1928a, p. 140; Roughley, 1936, p. 69). 5 Photographic technologies were relatively limited, and few photographs or films were able to record turtle activity at night. Rather, the black and white images feature turtles on shore during the day where they were sometimes kept for such pur- poses. Many other images depict the tracks left in the sand by turtles the night before. An important exception is the 1929 film Ocean oddities which shows a close up of a turtle laying eggs (Love, 2000, pp. 116-117; Monkman, 1933). 6 Tod Sloane was a famous American jockey who popularized the short stirrup riding style. 7 Out of the breeding season, turtles could have been caught at sea using methods employed by Indigenous hunters. The records do not suggest that this was common, but a 1955 account (Clarke, 1955, pp. 220-224) describes an attempt to first ride a turtle in a coral pool offshore and then to transport the turtle back to the island. The description suggests a great deal more effort and injury to the turtle than is common in earlier descriptions of turtle riding. 8 Archival records indicate that fully dressed individuals occasionally sat or stood on a turtles back on the sand and it seems unlikely that they rode into the water. There is also a film sequence that shows a man holding a turtle in the shallows to assist others to gain a sense of riding in water (O’Sullivan, 1929). However, the descriptions of turtle riding that are most characteristic of the practice and that portray the thrill and excitement of the experience include a ride that carries the person from land into the water. 9 Possibly the most recent images of turtle riding are those in a series of Heron Island photographs by Frank Hurley (Hurley, 1961a, 1961b, 1961c, 1961d). Correlating the images with Hurley’s diary suggests that he was on Heron Island in June or

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July of 1961, which is not the turtle breeding season. This suggests that the turtle used in these photographs was not caught during nesting. These depict a young woman in a two-piece bathing suit astride a turtle on the beach. The images are carefully framed and not indicative of an animated ride. Hurley had previously visited the Reef in the late 1920s and his composition of these photographs may reﬂect his own nostalgia for earlier times.

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