At 110-years-old a Galapagos Giant Tortoise proves age is just a number!

E177: Galapagos adventures - Tortoise and Turtle edition

Feb 03, 2025

This edition is specially for Joann, Lisa and Kathleen of

We gather our minds together to send our greetings and thanks to all the beautiful animal life of the world, who walk about with us. They have many things to teach us as people. We are grateful that they continue to share their lives with us and hope that it will always be so. Let us put our minds together as one and send our thanks to the Animals.
Now our minds are one.
— ‘Thanksgiving Address’ in Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Slowing down with age? Watch this Galapagos Giant Tortoise and think again!

Today’s edition is a birthday gift to two special friends who are also members of Tribe Tilt.

Your best years are still ahead

“This is just Day 1. We haven’t yet arrived at our hotel, and are enjoying such amazing experiences! This is going to be a great vacation,” I realized, trying to get over the aches and pains of our flight. We’d made a slight detour stopping for lunch with the Galapagos Giant Tortoises at the Tortoise Reserve in the highlands.

And there were tortoises … e v e r y w h e r e!

Check out the wrinkles on this giant reptile. They stopped me from fretting about mine!

These Chelonoidis niger were my first realization that I was standing on a very special set of islands on Earth. The sheer number of tortoises. Their incredible size. The fact that they treated us humans like part of the furniture.

And then, for added gravitas (like their size was not sufficiently impactful) was how they “carried their age”.

Myth disproven: As slow as a tortoise.

This 110-year-old Galapagos Giant Tortoise got into a turf war with the 70-year-old, who had his harem of ladies in the mud bath behind him. Mating season is a few weeks away and I guess the ‘young’ buck was practising. A few snarls later, and watch the speed on that 110-year-old! (In my memory, the older one was 300 lbs and 140 years old, but my kids seem to recall this one was ‘only 110’. There were so many on this farm, I hope I remembered their respective ages correctly!)

We had a similar experience a few days later at the Charles Darwin Research Center where these saddleback tortoises going head-to-head reminded me of my three in their teen years:

Sea Turtles

For

Sea Turtle Scoop

’s Kathleen Martin (her organization - Canadian Sea Turtle Network - tags and tracks leatherback sea turtles on their nesting and annual Atlantic journey between Trinidad and Nova Scotia)

Kathleen - you were never far from my mind! My most memorable “Galapagos moment” is seared in my memory instead of on camera. As we climbed the unique lava arch landscape at Los Tuneles, a giant (in my mind it was at least 4 feet wide and grows in dimension in every subsequent telling!) turtle swam in crystal clear water through the arch, as if welcoming me to this beautiful spot.

These photos of a smaller turtle are a close second:

Fun fact: I had to spend time playing with the saturation on these photos in Light Room so you too could experience what I saw so clearly deep in the water … while wearing my polarizing sunglasses 😏.

Then, of course, the divine experience of swimming with turtles of all sizes who really did not notice that I was a novice at snorkelling!

Aging with grace and flexibility

You may recall from previous editions that intentionally aging gracefully is something I consider a 21st-century skill. The children born this year will most likely live 100+ years. As medical advances give each of us a longer runway for life, it is important to consider the quality and composition of our ‘long life’. Plan accordingly. Plan and curate your interests, community, health and activities.

What can we learn from the Turtles and Tortoises to “Tilt the future in your favour”? Are there advances in science that can borrow ideas from these ancient animals?

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Over to you:

I came across some interesting facts while researching content for this edition that might make great in-person or digital conversation starters:

Slow Food Movement: Tortoises were easy to catch, and convenient to stack on deck. Living tortoises can go for many months without food and water. They do this by having reserves of blubber. When they find a source of water, tortoises can drink up to 20L or 5 gallons storing the excess in a special bladder. If the water is salty, their metabolism desalinates the water. Properly butchered, therefore, the tortoise became a lifesaver for the sailors on long voyages, providing them with delicious fresh meat and drinkable water. Once slaughtered their blubber was fuel for lamps, and the shell was used for combs and many other tools.

"Are we able to learn anything from turtles and tortoises?" I came across the phrase “tortoise mindset” while researching for this essay. It seemed counter-intuitive, but a tortoise mindset was linked with a growth mindset:

The tortoise believes that he can win the race if he works hard and keeps going. He's not afraid of failure and values the process of growth over the outcome.

"Are you in the first, second, third or fourth quarter of your life?" Do you look at family members a decade or two ahead of you as indicators of what your health could look like?

Thoughts? Click here and let’s get these conversations started!

Tilt the Future - answering when serendipity knocks

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