Journal of the thirtieth day on board

1st June, 1999

We went to Messina to recuperate. 48 hours from the operation Claudietta is well. After a few days the turtle will be back in the sea.
"It hasn't been easy removing the hook because it was dug deeply into
her windpipe" says Deborah Ricciardi, a naturalist who looks after the
recovery of wild animals for the WWF.
"Dr. Grosso, a vet, first took a an x-ray then decided to operate.
It's more or less a routine operation because the arrival of a wounded
turtle tends to happen daily. This one would have died of hunger within a month because it would not have been able to eat."
We tell Deborah about our encounter with the dolphin who had lost his flipper. "It probably ended up in a net and will have been cut away by the fishermen. It happens. The superstitions about hooking a dolphin are such that they cut away the animal hoping that the dying body will send a message to its brothers: don't come here, there are nets, it's dangerous. They believe they are protecting the nets as well as the dolphins".