The Fitzgerald Leader Enterprise And Press

Hits Sea Of Turtles
Blames The Thunder

Captain of Vessel Says His Boat Ran Through Thousands off Tehauntepec

For a distance of eighty miles the motorship Kennecott plowed through a sea of turtles off the Gulf of Tehauntepec, Capt. John Johnson, master of the vessel reported upon his arrival at San Francisco from New York.

The turtles numbered thousands and were widely spread, says a dispatch to the New York World. Time and again, Capt. Johnson reported, sea gulls perched on the turtles which looked like bubbles in the water. So big was the shoal. Capt. Johnson's report of the branch hydrographic office stated that the turtles apparently made no effort to get out of the way of the Kennecott as she churned through the waters.

For twelve hours the motorship passed through the turtle-infested sea and Captain Johnson stated that great shoals of small fishes also were in evidence. The turtles, according to an estimate of Capt. Johnson, ranged from a small size to four feet long and in weight up to more than five hundred pounds.

It was the belief of Capt. Johnson that thunder storms in the mountains and swollen rivers entering into the Gulf of Tehauntepec resulted in the turtles and fish seeking refuge in the gulf waters off the Mexican coast.