Photo-Diary of a Terrapin Researcher Don Lewis, Massachusetts Audubon Society, Fox Island Wildlife Management Area

Barnacle Bill — 7 December 2000

Night patrol hit the beaches of Eastham, Wellfleet and Truro about 8 p.m., a little after high tide.  Temperature hovered around 30 with a snappy west-northwest breeze.  Bob Prescott, the Wellfleet Bay Sanctuary director, spotted “a rock where there shouldn’t have been one” off the Eastham beach near Cole Road.  He plunged into the frigid surf and retrieved Barnacle Bill, a nearly 68-pound loggerhead being tossed ashore in the rising tide.

As the name implies, his carapace was encrusted from head to tail with barnacles, some of which wrapped around and under his top shell.  Whole communities of critters had taken residence on this nearly two-foot square mobile reef.  With a sharp knife, barnacles were removed.

His carapace was cleaned and sterilized, and his flippers were jellied to prevent dehydration, giving Bill that moist and glossy look so sought after in loggerhead pinups.

Despite an initial body temperature of only 33.7°F, Bill seems remarkably active and responsive.  He’s resting the night in a dark 50-degree recovery room, waiting for tomorrow’s trip to the New England Aquarium and the beginning of his voyage back home to the tropics.

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