Monday, week 6

They released the baby sea turtles we saved Saturday night! They are on their own now, ready to fight for their little lives!

Today was another day...Nothing too exciting, got a new set of campers and I'm working with the older kids camp (grades 5-8). It rained substantially in the morning but luckily we were taking the kids to the aquarium and the mammal center. Both these pictures are from there. Although, for it to be an exciting time after Saturday night, something really sweet would have to happen...haha. Actually, Amberlee told me I have to come see her dolphins and the stuff she does in her program. Oh darn, haha! I'm so excited. I think I'm doing that on Sunday after my dive class.
Other than that, this week will be rather "routine." As soon as it isn't sweltering, I'm going running...I've found that at about 7:30 or so, it's bearable to run and I can get in a good hour before it gets dark. Not that I run very far, like 3-4 miles but I find that it's too hot and I can't go without water for much longer than that as it's usually between 88-90 degrees then + humidity!! That's the real killer. We had a heat advisory the other day last week as the perceived temp w/ humidity was 107 degrees and it was only 90 I think.
That's about it, nothing too glamorous to tell, as you can see. I really outdid myself with the turtle post. I should just stop blogging as I don't think much else cooler than that can happen. I'm sure reading this is like a chore after reading that. (If that was even exciting to anyone else besides me).

Sea Turtle Patrolling

This is me touching the girly that we found under the stairs last night. We have to use night vision for the turtles so it isn't the best picture ever but I don't even care, it's still bomb diggity.

Last night was probably the best night of my life. Ryan brought me out to Casey Key to sit on the beach with some volunteers by a nest that was supposed to be hatching soon. I thought we were going to satellite tag a turtle but Ryan explained to be that we were doing a special program for our volunteers. We got to the beach at about 9:30pm. We had 8 volunteers, so it was a small group. Then, we walked down to the nest which was a kemp ridley's nest and sat and sat and sat and sat. We had 2 interns patrolling about 4-5 mi. of the beach on atv and they were supposed to call us if they saw anything and we would see if we could walk there. When they got close to us the first time, I thought it looked like a bear in the distance and Ryan thought that was very "California of me" so for the rest of the night we called the atv a bear. So, we're sitting and waiting and we had told them we would stay 'til 1am. 12:45 we get a call that the girls had found a turtle who was covering (covering her nest up after laying her eggs). We get up (possibly took longer than it does to get kids up) and started walking but they were too far away so we didn't get to see her.

Well, on the way there, Ryan told me that if he wasn't too tired (he worked that morning too) that he'd hop on the spare atv and take me on patrol. So, we got back, saw off the volunteers and jumped on the atv and off we went driving down the beach looking for turtles. We're driving along and then all of a sudden, Ryan stops and jumps off. He grabs this thing that is two long metal poles about 4ft tall with a pole going across that top to connect them that is more or less a foot long. Meanwhile, I had squealed at the sight of the turtle and was in complete awe. He goes, get over here! Then he plunks the pole thingy right around the turtles neck, holding the connector piece at the top. "Hold this, he says, but keep your feet back, she could bite" Now, this was a loggerhead, rather big, the beak on that thing was pretty intimidating. Then he runs back to the atv. He comes back with a pair of what looks like pliers and what look like brackets. He goes, "I'm gonna tag her, she's probably gonna push pretty hard when I put the tag in" So he grabs her fin, puts the bracket thing inside the pliers which have a sharp piece sticking down and clamps it onto her fin. Oh, she pushed all right, it was really hard to hold her. Then he put one in the other fin. Then he measured her carapace (shell) length and width. Then he told me to remove the bar and I got to touch her shell and her front flipper. Then we let her go and went to check out where she'd gone. There were two tracks in the sand that looked aboout like tire tracks made from her belly and then she had the flipper push marks, you can tell the intrack (toward beach) because the sand is pused back toward the water like when we walk and the opposite for the outtrack. Turns out it was what they call a false crawl. She went up on to the beach and for whatever reason didn't want to lay her eggs and went back out to find a better spot.

So we get back on the atv and now that I knew what to look for. Silly me had been looking like I was just going to be able to see a turtle. You have to look for the tracks because they're very distinct and a lot easier to see than just looking randomly for a turtle. We cruise to the south end by the jetty and turn around. We met up with the other bear and got stakes for the turtle we'd tagged to mark her nest and proper data sheets as he'd just scribbled the tag #'s on a piece of paper.Then we head up north where we go by these waterfront homes that are the biggest things. It's insane, one is a war vet and he lost his leg so he drives around in his house in a golf cart! He has mini driveways spiraling up to the 2nd floor even. So we're going along and most of these houses have wooden stairs going to the beach, well we see turtle tracks and we find a loggerhead right under a set of stairs. She was covering, I saw one of the eggs! So, Ryan grabs the camera and snaps a couple of night vision shots of me sitting with the turtle because when she is laying her eggs, she goes into a trance and you can get real close and stuff and she doesn't mind. Then, we grab the turtle blocker thing and now that I know what my job is, I'm ready for action.

Well, this girl did not want to be stopped. She kept trying to back up out of the blocker and turn her head. As Ryan goes to clip in the tag, she moves and has to redo it. In the process of this, the turtle is pushing so hard, she splits the poles apart a bunch so I only had her by one pole in front of the right fin and one behind the left. The left fin tag gets messed up but went in so Ryan had to pry it back out. Now, the whole time the turtle has me backed up against the stairs, flings sand in my eye and the blocks bonks me in the head. But you better believe I held that turtle. We got the tags in and got her measured, though and sent her back out to sea. Ryan bends the poles back in place and we head off. We see a few false crawls and missed 2 turtles nesting.

We took a pass back south and didn't see anything. Then we head back north to stake the nest of the turtle we'd tagged.

In all, we made 2 full passes north to south and then went halfway north and came back to the nest we'd been at w/ the volunteers. There had been talk that the nest might be infertile and it was on day 65 and at day 70, they dig it up. But, they should have hatched at least by day 65. So Ryan decides to dig into it. There was a 3 inch crust and then there was big hole. The hatchlings cavern they were digging collapsed and then were stuck in the nest. He calls up the interns who had just finished patrolling and they come out to help. Ryan starts pulling out baby sea turtles. They were so adorable but their bellies were all sunken in because they'd used up all their yolk and were starving. He pulled all the babies out and lined them up in a stack. Then some random weird guy who had been on the beach looking for turtles brings us a 5-gallon bucket. Ryan puts some sand in it and my job is to count and put all the hatchlings in the bucket. Me and the two other girls were in heaven with this job. We counted 77 altogether, I think, I mean, it was 4:30 am so I hope I got it right. Then he finished up with the documenting and we put the stuff away and brought the babies home. On the drive home, the little babies started getting what I thought was pretty active but Ryan said they were still pretty lethargic. We got home at 6am and I went straight to bed as I had been at a coast guard boater safety class all day. I was up 45 min shy of 24 hours.

The hatchlings spent the night in the bathroom safe from Henry. (video @bottom). This morning just before Ryan took them in, they were making a lot of noise scratching at the side of the bucket so I hope that means they are going to be okay

Here's me holding one of the babies last night, well this morning, I guess.

Not much else to report other than the fact that Jess is moving in today. Also going to try to complete the classwork for my scuba class. Hopefully, I'm a bit tired from being up for 24 hours and I could only sleep for about 3, I was too excited about the turtles! I think it's totally worth losing sleep over.

TGIF

Today, the campers were extra horribly behaved. I really don't know what's wrong with this weeks kids. All of us counselors were seriously at our wits end. At least we get new kids next week, and I don't think they can be much worse! haha. Nothing too exciting today, we finished early so that was nice.

Last night a bunch of us interns went to the Reds game (they have a minor league team here in Sarasota) because it was $1 night so we got in for a dollar and hot dogs, soda and popcorn was a dollar. I had the smallest world experience, I will have to detail right now. Like this is almost creepy:

So, we're all sitting there, about 10 of us and it happens to come up that I'm from CA and one of the girls, goes, "Where?"

me: "northern"

her: "where?"

me: San Francisco bay area"

her: "me too, I'm from this tiny little town, you've probably never heard of..."

me: "try me, I bet I will"

her: "Livermore"

me: "Are you kidding me? No way! You're lying right now! I'm from Livermore!!"

(for simplicity of this post, her name is Amberlee)

Amberlee: "where do you live?"

me: "by Mines and East Ave"

Amberlee: "I live right off of Loyola on Amy Ct"

me: Dude, I live on Eve Ln like 2 blocks from there!"

Amberlee: "Holy .... Did you go to Livermore?"

me: "Yeah, what year did you graduate?"

Amberlee: '05, when did you?

me: '07

Amberlee: "Oh, my brother was in your class."

me: "What's your last name?"

Amberlee: "Belsick"

me: "Dude, I know your bro, Jarrod, he went to Jackson with me!"

(meanwhile, all the other interns are sitting there like what in the world is going on?!)

How crazy is it that I am across the country and one of the other interns is not only from CA, and the Bay area, but she is from my hometown and I went to elementary, middle and high school with her and her brother and we live blocks apart?! Honestly, I couldn't even make that up. I'm still amazed.

weekend update

This last weekend was a super fun time. On Saturday, Chelsey and Sarah-Jane and I trucked up to St. Pete where Becky lives and we all went to the Clearwater Aquarium. It was pretty cool. They have a dolphin named winter who is missing her tail. A prosthetics company made her a sweet fake tail, we didn't get to see her swim with it but it is to help her swim normal because she swims like a fish without her tail which is bad for her vertebral column since she's made to swim up and down-like. Then we went to Madeirna beach which was really nice. The water was HOT! It was insane, it was also a really hot day, though. Then we all came back to my house and Sarah-Jane brought her Friends Scene-it Trivia game (I schooled them, they didn't even know what was comin'!) and we had pretzels, popcorn and Mike's Lemonade for dinner.

Sunday we went to Plato's closet in Bradenton and Becky and I got longer jean shorts on the cheap. Then we brought Chelsey to Mote for her meeting since she went to the Keys this week. Becky and I kayaked for a couple of hours while we waited and we saw 3 manatees!!! It was so so amazing! Then we met Sarah-Jane at Siesta Beach and lounged there for a couple of hours. Becky came home with me and we made pasta for dinner w/ garlic bread. I made dump cake for desset. Fun times.

Yesterday was a new week of camp and we have our bosses' 6 yr-old daughter in camp. She's so cute! She also has the exact same birthday as me. Today was a long day. My station to teach was snorkeling. The funny thing about kids is that they run around all the time but when they are changing and getting in and out of water, they do it soooooo sloooooowwwww! It's ridiculous. It was scorcher today, seriously, we're talking mega heat, so I was glad to be in the water.

That's all from here, I'm excited for this Saturday because Ryan is bringing me with him to go tag a turtle on the beach. All the other interns are jealous becuase I can't invite anyone else since it's like super special that I get to go in the first place.

A last exciting note, I called the scuba place today and I got all signed up to start my scuba certification and I can have it done before I go to the Keys because I can scuba with the kids if I'm certified. How cool will that be?

ps: baby sea lion on 880 yesterday? CRAZY!! Poor little guy!

Friday

Today was the last day of camp. I had to be camp lifeguard but I didn't miss too much, the kids just snorkeled and did plankton tows. We got to leave early at 3 because we're so efficient and got everything done.
My big project that I finished this week was going through two years of evals (This lady, Penelope Kingman donates "scholarships" to send 4 kids from boys and girls club to camp every week of the summer and we in turn evaluate all the kids by something called a kingman eval) Basically we give the kids a blank piece of paper on the first day and ask them to represent a question that is related to the theme of camp for the week. We give them back the paper on the last day and they add on to their response. Then we have to score them based on 3 things, relevant topics, correct topics but not something they would learn at camp and an overall score on a scale of 1-5 of how well they answered the question. We have to have 2-3 reviewers for each week of Kingman evals. I just organized and made sure that every week got eval'd by at least 2 people and then I had to enter the data into excel spreadsheets. This was something they expected to work on "sometime during the summer" but we all just wanted to get it done first. We are now caught up, even on the two weeks of camp this summer.
Other than that, nothing too exciting, I celebrated getting home early by taking a nap. Last night Sarah-Jane (her weekends are Friday and Saturday) went out to dinner at chilis (we had a $5 off coupon for the 10 under $7 entrees) and then we met her friend/fellow intern in Siesta at the Daiquri Deck. We weren't out too late but I was just tired from the week.

PS:
Patrick sent me this video in an email. I thought it sounded like a pretty accurate description of what goes on there in the summer! haha.


Humboldt Crabs on Leno Video by {MARIEL} - MySpace Video

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Wednesday

Today was a pretty busy day at camp. We took the kiddies fishing. The 12 of them caught 28 fish! I ran around unhooking and releasing fish like crazy. They caught pinfish, a red grouper, grunt fish (they're also called pigfish because they make this sound like a pig grunt) and a mudskipper. We only had one problem child. Joshua threw a fit, complete with fishing pole punting, cussing, and crying because he is highly alergic to shellfish so he couldn't bait his hook with the squid and had to use a plastic lure and of course he didn't catch any fish. Also, no one told me that he has a mild form of autism, which sure explains a lot. Other than that, the kids are dolls, except Liam, he is a brat.

One of the girls, Shelia, is from Los Altos so I was pretty excited to get to talk to her about stuff from back home.

We took the kids snorkeling after and didn't find too many cool things. I was surprised, we usually find all kinds of good marine life. However, as we were walking back, I did spot a snake, I think it was a corn snake, in the gutter on the side of the road, right next to the sidewalk (there aren't any curbs) so it was a pretty close encounter. I tried to keep it on the DL (pretty much all the girls are scared of them) but when I saw it, I think I said something along the lines of holy jesus. Of course all the boys wanted to go back and see it but somehow Demi and I kept them away.

Somehow after work, Amy (one of the edu staff) roped me into going with her to help her with a presentation on sea turtles at the Anna Maria Island library. Karsen (one of the high school interns) had to go too. It wasn't bad at all, I learned a couple of things, so then I didn't get home until about 7, which made for a pretty long day. I think I'm going to try to go to bed early so I can ride my bike again, I rode it to work yesterday, fairly easy ride, coming home was a bit warm but at least I can count it for my exercise for the day!

Monday

This is a picture of Lido Beach. It's on Longboat Key.

Today was the first day of the sea sleuths camp. It's kids grades 5-8. I am teaching in this camp this week. It's cool because you can go into more detail and depth about the marine life the kids see and they can actually understand what you're talking about. There's only one outrageously annoying kid named Liam in the camp, so not too bad.

My friend Sarah-Jane texted me to invite me to turtle beach which is at the end of siesta key. Chelsey and I went and we had a good time. We just played frisbee catch and stuff. There were like 6 or 7 interns from other departments there. It was nice to get to meet some of the other interns as we education interns kind of get stuck in our little bubble since our 8-5 hours keep us really busy. I just got back from that. Not much else to say, I'll probably try to get to bed pretty soon as the morning does come early for me.
TTFN

Week 3 update

Becky and I kayaking in Sarasota Bay, behind us is the road to Mote. The other picture is me and Sarah-Jane at Chilis.


Hi everyone!
I just had a brilliant idea to start a blog to keep up with everyone while I'm across the country. I'm sure that only a few people will be interested in my updates but whatever. Here goes:

Today was a slow Sunday. I was woken up at like 9am by the two dogs, Henry and Juma, pulling down my bedroom doorway curtains. So much for sleeping in! haha. Pretty much all I did today was lounge around the house and help make beer. By help, I mean I put out mini pretzels for a snack. We watched the Lakers-Magic game as well.

Yesterday, I went to the beach with Becky, Chelsey and Sarah-Jane. They are other interns, Sarah-Jane is from Georgia and works with the turtle research hospital. Becky is another education intern and she is from St. Louis. Chelsey is also an education intern and she is from Eden Prairie, Minnesota (where Monica Spicher moved to). We laid out and swam (swam being a relative term here as the water is about chin deep(ish). Then we treated ourselves to dinner at chilis. It was a nice day.

Friday was the last day of the first week of camp and it was a pretty easy day. I was camp lifeguard for snorkeling so for about 2 hours I guarded the 2' deep water-complete with a rescue tube, what a joke! After the campers left, we all got to go kayaking, which was super fun! That night Ryan brought me with him to his friend's house to watch the Detroit-Pittsburg stanley cup finals game.

Also, a number of sea turtle nests were poached this week. Sad. But, Ryan and Jess made the news: Jess is in the picture and Ryan is quoted in the article. It was on the front page of Friday's paper.

I also made the paper, well the Longboat observor, a much smaller deal. I helped out last weekend at world oceans' day and Tim came in on Monday with a picture of me in the newspaper.