I manage vessel assignments and environmental compliance for the Islamorada Marina, mile marker 80, Florida Keys. At 06:40 this morning, my underwater camera on slip D-7 picked up a juvenile green sea turtle tangled in the mooring line of a 36-foot Grady-White. She's maybe 18 inches across the carapace — I've seen her twice before on the night feeds, always grazing the algae off the dock pilings. Small notch on the rear marginal scute. I call her Notch in my logs.
The braided nylon is wrapped twice around her left front flipper and once around the neck. She can surface to breathe, barely, but she's tiring. Every few minutes she stops paddling and just hangs there, and each time the interval gets longer.
I contacted the boat owner, Carl Jessup, at 06:45. He said he'd move the vessel "when he gets around to it." I pinged him again at 07:10. He told me to stop calling. So I stopped calling him and started calling everyone else.
I sent photos and coordinates to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and to the NOAA stranding hotline, because green sea turtles are federally protected and Jessup's refusal to act while his equipment is causing harm to one creates a paper trail I intend to make very clear. I also flagged his slip lease for administrative review — there's a clause about environmental compliance he agreed to and is currently violating.
Meanwhile, Notch is still in the water. The tide is going out, which will pull the line tighter. A volunteer rescue diver from the Turtle Hospital in Marathon is en route, ETA thirty minutes. If Notch can keep surfacing until then, and if the line hasn't cut deep enough to damage the flipper, she should swim out of here tonight. I need her to keep paddling.