INTO THE BIG BLUE

I first met Annie when I drove her to the ʻhuman hospitalʼ. Let me explain: the Annie in question is a loggerhead turtle, and she needed a check-up because she had been swimming around her tank at the Two Oceans Aquarium in Cape Townʼs V&A Waterfront with her bottom bobbing skywards at a 45-degree angle.

Fortunately, the series of CT scans and ultrasounds at Tygerberg Hospital showed that upside-down Annie was in good health: her buoyant derrière was due to some excess gassiness (which earned her the nickname ʻBubble-Buttʼ).

Annie – like hundreds of other sea turtles – ended up at the Two Oceans Aquarium after she was rescued. This often happens when the turtles are stranded in icy waters outside the Mozambique current. They suffer from