Looking north along Playa Norte at dusk from the 3/8 mile marker.

For 3 nights we have a group of 18 undergrads from Louisiana helping us on our night patrols. They are studying sea turtle conservation with Dr. Roldan Valverde and are bulking up our numbers on the beach. Last night, we sent out 4 patrols and I was on the last group. April and I headed out at midnight with 5 people from the undergrad group, unsure of how they would take to the experience. They had been up all day, had never seen sea turtles before and had trouble keeping their voices down on the beach.

Our first turtle sighting was less than 3/8 of a mile in and was by far the best Green turtle I’ve ever worked. She was digging an egg chamber as we came upon her and was quick about laying her eggs and disguising the nest…the disguising alone can take 2-3 hours but she was done in about 45 minutes. We let each of the students come up and have a good look at her and it brought me right back to the first time I saw a turtle. The amazement and wonder was great to see and their smiles lasted all night. It helped that we had perfect weather. A nice bright moon, lots of stars and not a single drop of rain…my feet even stayed dry all night!!

All of the students with us had inspiring and positive attitudes and made for a really great night. One of them developed a blister which opened and caused her quite a bit of pain but she didn’t complain once, just did what she needed to do in order to minimize the pain and adamantly refused when we offered to call it quits early. Our patrol ended just after 4 am when they had been up for almost 24 straight hours and still had to walk just over 2 miles back to their hotel (not enough room for them at the station). They still took the time to thank us and comment about how much fun they had. To Belinda, Heather, Allison, Anthony and Rayeed, thank you once again for your wonderful outlook, dedication, passion, for teaching me almost as much as we taught you and for making a late night so memorable.

The planting crew (Photo: Caitlin McManus)

There was an early morning flurry of activity in the kitchen on Friday at 5 am. Two of the three night patrols were just returning to base, the morning beach census crew was preparing for their shift and several of us rose early to plant trees and vines around the station with Mario. A few people from the night crews pulled all nighters and just stayed up to help. What I found amazing was that only one of the 7 or 8 of us was required to be on the morning botany shift…the other person scheduled had to do the morning beach patrol so the rest of us volunteered.

We planted about 40 trees/vines in total all around the station property, had a lot of fun, woke up every sleeping soul on base and got completely covered in mud in the process. Like most things, we took it too far and ended up having mud tosses, mud fights and mud slaps (all friendly of course – although that call may be ultimately up to Dan since he was the only one to eat any). We also dug through what we thought was a water pipe only to later discover (after partially sawing through) that it was actually an phone line. Luckily it was no longer in use and we all were soon washing the mud off in the canal.

All our adventures with Mario are fun and educational, this one was no exception. Hopefully in years down the line, the people eating the fruit from the trees will taste a bit of the enjoyment we all had in planting them and working together. We make a pretty damn good team.

Photos are property of Caitlin McManus and not to be shared or used outside of this blog.

Ah Sunday, my precious day off. I did get out on the canal for a short paddle today, but most of it was spent in bed trying to rest up and start all over again tomorrow morning. Allow me to take you through my last week of shifts on the beach.

Monday morning I set out at 5:30 on a team with 3 others to perform my first excavation. We had 2 Leatherback nests to excavate and of course this was done in the pouring rain. Luckily, neither nest contained dead hatchlings or unhatched embryos to sort through so the work was much more pleasant and less smelly than it could have been. One of the nests was full of roots but the other seemed to have hatched out normally. It was really interesting and we had Caitlin from Fleming’s Environmental Visual Communications course along to document the process. All photos are property of the photographer and not to be shared or used outside of this blog.

Excavating a Leatherback nest to collect data on hatching success.

Tuesday morning was my only shift this week without rain and it was lovely! A nice leisurely walk on the beach to check nests and enjoy some sunshine. I was supposed to work a double on Tuesday, which means a morning shift and a late shift, but the night shift was cancelled due to sick patrol leaders. I was ok with it.

Wednesday we still had one sick patrol leader so we piled 11 people into the motorboat so Josh could drop us off at the end of the transect and we could just work our way back. During the boat ride a crazy thunderstorm hit and we had to bail about 12 cm of water out of the boat. We were going to split into 2 patrols but it was so pitch black we decided to stick together and walk single file. The tide was so high we were up in the vegetation climbing over trees and tripping over bushes. It was tough going and not a single turtle was spotted, but we only had to walk half the normal distance.

Thursday night our team was out in an even crazier thunderstorm than Wednesday. We spent over an hour in the trees waiting out lightning that was less than 2 miles away. The rain was warm and we were able to stand in a line and watch the incredible show of nature. When the wind picked up, I realized that wearing a rain poncho in a thunderstorm is likely the closest I’ll get to wearing a cape so I had a fun walk.

Friday night we worked 3 Green turtles, which sounds more fun than it really is. Yes, they are amazing, awe inspiring creatures but they take their sweet time to nest and disguise. We left the station around 11:30 pm and were out until 5:45, working the final turtle of the night for over 2.5 hours. It was nice to have daylight for the walk back, but we were all too exhausted to really enjoy it. Dan and I went for a swim in the canal instead of showering when we got back and ate eggs before getting to bed around 6:30 am.

Last night I got to work 2 Hawksbill turtles, the first I’ve seen. They are much speedier than Greens so it was quick work but there was so much turtle action on the beach! While working our second Hawksbill, we could see both of the other patrols each working turtles within about 200 meters of us. We were less than 250 meters from our end point when we came upon a Green very early in the nesting process. While she took forever, the rain started and we got drenched and completely chilled. Last night’s patrol lasted from 11 pm until 4:30 am. Hence all the sleeping today, and the reason I’m finishing this blog and going right back to bed. I just hope for less rain this week…we all really need to do laundry and are running low on dry undies.