We do get periodic visits by sea turtles in the Santa Barbara Channel and Channel Islands. It isn’t a frequent event, however during my on-the-water adventures, I’ve seen them multiple times.

The big splash this week is the story of an olive ridley sea turtle crawling up a Ventura beach and laying eggs in the sand.

This is huge news because this is the farthest north along our coast that this particular species of sea turtle has nested, to my knowledge.

There have been two instances of olive ridleys nesting this year on beaches of Orange County, and those were considered far northern lattitudes for nesting.

We talk a lot about visitations of southern fishes like dorado and marlin and tunas. However, other sea critters are trending far north of their usual haunts because of this powerful El Niño, which brings us warm water from the south.

The two clutches of eggs from the Orange County nests were taken to the Aquarium of the Pacific for proper care because of a valid concern about continued fierce storms and high tides that could wipe out the nests.

The eggs laid on the Ventura beach, however, are going to remain in place, with some fencing around them for protection.

Gestation is a little less than a month and a half, so Ventura may be blessed with olive riddley sea turtles hatching before Christmas and crawling off to sea. That would be a truly heartwarming holiday season gift.

I’ve seen a variety of sea turtles over my decades at sea here locally. One more memorable encounter was near Platform Holly, off Ellwood. I had a group fishing there and as usual I was keeping a sharp lookout.

About 100 yards from the boat, I saw something repeatedly poke up out of the water, and it seemed to be moving.

I kept an eye on it as my passengers caught fish and had fun. After a little while the object was close enough that I could make out the head and shell of a very large leatherback turtle, and it was heading straight for us.

I had my people reel up their fishing lines so I could move the boat out of the critter’s way, but at about 10 feet away it stopped, looked straight at us, and slowly turned to swim alongside us and off our bow. The closest it came to us was about six feet, and we all had a spectacular viewing.

That big leatherback was swimming right through the natural gas and oil seepage in the area, and it didn’t seem bothered by it at all. The stuff seemed to rinse off as it bobbed and progressed.

Now to those who didn’t read the title closely, you may be wondering if sea turtles have tails. They do, not big ones that could be used for navigation control, but they are there.

In the title, I was referring to tales of turtles, like the one I just had the pleasure of sharing with you.