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KEYNOTER (Marathon, Florida) 10 November 04 Wayward turtle a magical reptile? Woman finds enlightenment in tortoise search (Larry Kahn lkahn)
Cassandra the turtle is either one magical reptile or just one lucky critter.
Both owner Sarah Brawer of Marathon and concerned turtle person Laura Catlow of Summerland Key think it's magical.
Either way, the tale of the African spur-thigh tortoise that bolted from home (if turtles could bolt) and was lost for nearly three weeks before being reunited with Brawer seems remarkable.
"It's more than coincidence," Catlow maintains.
Cassandra's odyssey started Oct. 17, when she decided to make a break for it from her house on 89th Street in Marathon.
"Not really an escape. She pushed through the screen door," Brawer says.
Brawer placed a lost-turtle ad in this newspaper that week, but the hopes for Cassandra's return seemed dim.
"My baby box turtle was depressed and stayed under the sand bags for three days," Brawer says.
In steps Catlow, whose husband Tim was getting in a round at the Key Colony Beach Golf Course Oct 30. Instead of talking about his game after he got home, all he could talk about was this odd-looking tortoise he saw at the course.
Catlow recalled the newspaper ad for Cassandra, and gave Brawer a call saying her husband might have seen the turtle. She left a message, Brawer returned it, they chatted, that was that.
The following day, Catlow put the following on her blog on the Web:
"Every year the day after Fantasy Fest, we take a long walk in the woods. On the way [on Big Pine Key], we saw a turtle crossing the road and a guy pulled over to move it across and into the woods.
"When we got closer, I saw the front plate on his car was a sea turtle. We picked up my friend Jillian and while on our walk, she told me she was reading 'The Voyage of the Beagle' by Charles Darwin and his study of the Galapagos turtles.
"Well, then on the way home around the same spot where we saw the turtle, a car passed us and on the front plate was a custom Florida tag that spelled out 'turtle.' Then I checked the mail from [the previous day] and on the front page of the National Geographic magazine, the feature of the issue - Charles Darwin."
Coincidences? Or something else at play?
Meanwhile, Catlow had a letter to the editor about Tim's turtle experience in this newspaper Nov. 3. Brawer saw it, called her and said that had to be Cassandra. A search of the course that night didn't turn up the turtle.
But the following day, Brawer received a call from Key Colony Beach City Hall - Cassandra indeed had been found, by city golf course groundskeeper Bill Fallon on the eighth fairway. The Key Colony staff had read Catlow's letter, and put two and two together.
"I actually caught it once [before]," Fallon said. "I asked around and no one knew anything, so I let it go. Thursday, I found it again. I gave it to City Hall. It's about a foot long. It's just very weird-looking. It looks like a dinosaur."
Cassandra apparently somehow managed to make it north on U.S. 1 from across Florida Keys Marathon Airport, cross the Vaca Cut Bridge, then traverse the Key Colony Beach causeway - pretty tough stuff for a turtle.
Fallon says "somebody must have caught it and let it go." No one's sure. But Catlow thinks something more was at play.
"That is one magical turtle," she said.
Cassandra - now the size of a shoe box but likely to grow to more than 200 pounds - won't be escaping anymore.
"We rescreened everything," Brawer said.
Woman finds enlightenment in tortoise search

What a great story, thank you.

Ciao'

Giovanni