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.