Crazy times

Parakeet at the station

Things around here have been very strange lately, and for the most part, none of it has had to do with the turtles. We are now in the peak of season, but we are not finding as many turtles as predicted, but they are laying far more eggs than anticipated and the hatchlings are hatching in full force (up to 5 nests a night). These are mostly ridley nests, which has hit its peak and now there is only a small trickle of olive ridleys females nesting these days. Next month I imagine there will be far less of their nests hatching. The baulas are holding steady but we are still waiting for the December spike.

A leatherback hatchling

I was sitting on break with Nathan (a former biologist with the project and Frank's PhD student)three nights ago and we watched a leatherback break through the waves and emerge out of the water. For those of you unfamiliar with turtle work, this is a rare site! Typically, by the time we find a turtle she is almost all the way up the beach or starting to body pit, but to watch her emerge from crashing waves is something truely spectacular which I have only seen 3 times at most and to get a turtle while on break is just as rare. I was suprised when I woke my volunteer up and she watched for a mintue then rolled over and went back to sleep uninterested. Little did she know that this was a special turtle; other than the fact it was Baulitica, she was the chosen turtle for the director of the park at attend with his VIP group. I don't really know who this group is, but the were dressed up with collared shirts, khakis, and one of the ladies even had a nice dress on. The real indicator of how important this viewing was, was that the park director, Rotney, gave me a pep talk before the turtle saying, "these people, well they are very important, so this has to be PERFECT!" So little goes perfect around here and with Rotney telling me the turtle was going too slow it was stressing him out...let's just say I was so nervous I could have peed my pants! But everything turned out alright. However, his group did not seem so interested in the turtle. Tourists had to be pulled away, but I found many of the VIPS staring over the water, the sky, and just meandering around the turtle like they were bored, one guy stood 20m off to the side the whole time. I have never seen so many people uninterested in a turtle in my life, and anyone else would have enjoyed it!

Another story for this week is the Avalon had some friends who happened to be in town. Kim and I had to leave the bar where they were because they were so rude and obnoxious. Later that evening our guard, Herman, met them climbing over our back fence with gun drawn. Fortunately, we had just installed video cameras the week prior and were able to watch the whole thing over and over. I felt bad for Avalon, because there was nothing she could do about them jumping over the fence...however even more excitement happened that day that lead us all to forget about the three boys being escorted out with hands above their heads.

Jim feeding the Ctenosaur by our pool

A Ctenosaur about to eat

Other drama occured when Matt showed up crying at our back door with both hands dripping with blood and a limp bloody ctenosaur. He ran to the sink holding the ctenosaur, who had blood running down its mouth and all over its eyes. All of the biologist were pretty sure he had killed it with his noose on accident, but as it turns out the ctenosaur was the one who did all the damage to Matt's hand, but it was perfectly fine. Matt had to leave for the hospital and told us not to let it go, but we had nothing to contain it in, and reptiles are particularly prone to stressed induced death. This lady, however, was a fighter. She wiggled right out of Kimmy's hands, which we were all mildly relieved about because who knew how long Matt was going to be at the hospital and you can't hold the animal that long. Kimmy went after her with the towel and she whipped her tail, turned, opened her mouth, and hissed. I got back in time to see this part. She still had Matt's blood all in her mouth and looked quite scary, I wish I had my camera on me that time. There was no chance to recapture her. Matt showed up right after she got away and was very upset. Apparently he spent 20min in the woods screaming for help and no one did (probably because he doesn't know spanish), but he was dead set on tagging her after that. Everything ended up fine. He got 2 stitches on his finger and life went back to normal around here. He left for the home today with the board members of the Leatherback Trust...and it was about time some people left here because It has been packed!

Other then that, I have identified my first bacteria species! Another study done with Ridleys found this same species, allowing for a comparison to be made between the two beaches. So I am pretty stoked about that. I'm also excited that I was able to see the eclipse last night even though it had been cloudy all day. I had an eclipse ridley! That was kind of fun. We even were able to see a few meteors.