Melania & J

I met J out of pure luck, there is no other way to describe it. At the end of the 90's I was an undergrad student in La Paz, Baja California Sur, wanting to work with sea turtles but nobody at my university had a research project on it. They said Baja was not the right place for it, and that I should try something else. The internet was a new thing and I wasn't really sure how it worked  exactly but I browsed anyway and found J and Jeff Seminoff’s project with green turtles in Bahía de Los Ángeles. I sent him an email saying I wanted to study sea turtles and ask for guidance on how to proceed. Again, I was very inexperienced. J wrote back a few days later and invited me to join his project for a few weeks during the summer so I could learn about it and gain experience. I did not hesitate much and said yes without knowing anything about where BLA was or the difficulty to get there on public transportation back then. I had to ride with a local circus from Punta Prieta to BLA and then on a military truck to Antonio Resendiz's camp. My arrival was a surprise for everyone since I was escorted by armed military men very late that night. I think I may have scared them a little.

J & Jeff Seminoff

Jeff was there at the time, he welcomed me and the next morning began teaching me about their project and the daily activities they were running, from checking the nets for sea turtles, stomach lavages, measuring and weighing caught individuals, to placing satellite transmitters. It was a great learning experience. J arrived a few days later and we talked about what I wanted to do. I was interested in sea turtle nesting so he pointed me to Cabo San Lucas, there was a local NGO working on olive ridleys but he also encouraged me to look to other things, I remember we started a short project figuring out if turtles oriented themselves to a specific direction while in captivity, I had to go visit the turtle tanks at specific time intervals (day or night) and see where their head was pointing but that was not interesting enough so it ended pretty fast. I was absorbed in all the other activities they were doing, learning as much as I could in the couple of days I had left. Working with J and Jeff was the best learning experience in my undergrad life and I will forever thank them for that. 

I still don't know what he saw in me but from then on he became my mentor and friend. When the Grupo Tortuguero movement started, J invited me to participate in the first Loreto meeting I think I was already working on my research project with olive ridley nesting in Baja, so I had the chance to present my work to the group, but most importantly, I had the opportunity to learn from the fishermen and value their knowledge and experience. I remember that in that meeting, someone from the School for Field Studies in San Carlos, approached me and asked if I was interested in being a research assistant during the summer. They were conducting a sea turtle project and thought my experience may be of help, and J was one of the instructors. Of course he had something to do with that too! 

In 2000, I was finally ready to defend my bachelor's thesis and J was part of my committee. He flew down to La Paz to be there for my examination and the school (the female component) went crazy. The place was crowded not to hear about sea turtle nesting but to see this tall, blond, handsome blue-eyed guy sitting there asking questions about my work. After passing my examination, one of my female friends dared to say to me that the best part of it was definitely J. He clearly made an impact.

We lost touch for a while but we crossed paths a few times at the ISTS meetings, he always had a smile on his face. When I went to Florida to pursue my PhD, there was a moment when I was really struggling to continue, I didn't feel I was cut up for the academic environment and felt I wasn't doing things right. And as if sent by the gods, J came down to give a talk to another department and had the chance to talk to him after. I do not remember exactly what led to it but while talking to this circle of people, we began talking about me and how proud he was of how far I had gone. I couldn't hold the tears back then just as I cannot hold them as I write these lines. His words were exactly what I needed to hear at that time and made it all better. I will miss him dearly and will try to honor his legacy for as long as I can.