Frigatebirds, pelicans, barricudas, sharks and dolphins all feed on them in their first hours and days at sea. Only a tiny percentage of the hatchlings survive to adulthood. But survivors can live for decades. Penick believes some live 100 years. The female we saw laying eggs on Playa Grande was a survivor, though no one knew just how old she was, exactly where she had been, or how much of the world she might have seen.
Leatherbacks spend their lives in the water, the females coming ashore only briefly to lay eggs.
They travel on land slowly and with seeming difficulty. Finished disguising her nest, she began her return to the sea, using her front flippers to lurch forward, grunting softly with each lunge in the wet sand. It took her a few minutes to reach the water. As she labored through the foamy shallows she became less and less distinct in the dark night. We saw her reach the surf line.