Baulitas!

Spent the day in San Juanillo yesterday... nice local beach that is about an 80cent bus ride from the station. Great place to go and relax, swim, have some beers. Twas a good day. Came back here to the news that there were 15 leatherback hatchlings that emerged from one of the nests in the hatchery. They came out around the middle of the day and the beach and sand were too hot for them to travel to the water safely, so they were being kept in a bin at the center until conditions were more ideal.

We waited til around 6 and then a bunch of us went down to the beach to clear a nice track for them: flattening the sand, filling in crabholes, picking up debris and such. And then the race began. The little babies were a bit tired and disoriented from being in a bucket for the better part of the day so they started off a bit confused looking, moving around in circles and not in the right direction.


But they soon got the idea and headed toward the water.. Maybe it was the audience that had them confused at first.... There were quite a few of us watching and trying to send them in the right direction.


It was hard to get any decent pictures because they sun had set and they move really fast. Amazing to see there huge front flippers propelling them down the beach- they really are incredibly strong... Adult front flippers can break a legs if you get in their way.


Eventually they all made it to the sea. Like I've said before there's something really gratifying about seeing the hatchlings start swimming. They're on their own now and its disconserting to think about their odds but at least we may have made one small difference this critically endangered species whose numbers and chances of survival are dwindling each year.
Three more hatchlings arrived Saturday night while I was on patrol and hopefully there'll be a lot more because the nests they've been emerging from had quite a lot of eggs in them.

Esperanza y Excavaciones

Esperanza made an appearance last night. A few days behind schedule.. but better late than never... Esperanza was the one we weren't sure would come back because she had such bad injuries around her flippers.

Lucky I got to see her too.. I wasn't on patrol but I decided to go to the hatchery at midnight with Steph just in case a Baula showed up.. As soon as we were nearing the hatchery we saw the 3 red flashes that means "we've got a leatherback". Christine and Andre got to the Hatchery when we did and said she was pretty much gone... so I ran for it. Saw her just as she was making her way back to the water.

UNFORTUNATELY did not get a photo.. on account of very little moonlight and the crowd of foreigners standing around her.. tourons..

May have gotten a decent picture if conditions had been like the photo on the left... picture I took while messing around at the hatchery one night.

One girl didn't show up for her hatchery shift so I stayed with Steph until 4:30 am when she finally showed up.

Slept for about a half hour then started the day off at 5:45 with Gallo Pinto (rice and beans), juevos rancheros and Excavations! Digging up old Olive Ridley nests from the last Arribada... counting and opening the eggs to see how far along they got. Long, hot and smelly work... Was quite difficult getting the smell of rotting turtle embryo off my hands even with gloves on.

The Ticos treated us to coconuts that they climbed up to retrieve themselves and then I headed out for a day on the town in Guiones... A bit of shopping with the chicas and food... Icecream, beer, burgers!.. with bacon... simple treasures that you start to miss....

Patrolling at midnight.. so now I sleep... good night!

Had a 6am-12pm hatchery shift today... which soon turned into a Hatchling crusade. I saw some vultures nearby eating something so I went over and realized it was a beheaded Olive Ridley hatchling. Fucking vultures. Saw some more picking at another hatchling and ran over to save it... Little guy on the right.

He seemed alright and eventually made it to the water under my supervision and protection... Quite a proud moment.

Found the nest after I saw another hatchling emerge from it.. about 20 feet away from the Hatchery... And then another. Scared the vultures away and watched those two make it to the water as well...

Yet another hatchling came up but this guy wasn't doing so well... Took a while and lost a lot of his gusto so I don't know how far he made it after getting to the water.

About four other hatchlings came up out of another nest that I couldn't find but by then it was nearly midday so they all got fried. I think one of them made it safely to the water... Natural Selection at its best I suppose... They generally don't emerge during the day when its so hot so the ones that are dumb enough to shouldn't survive right? Still sad though..... Only one in one thousand sea turtle hatchlings make it to adulthood... Shitty odds huh?

Its so relieving when they finally make it to the water...

They look so much better swimming rather than walking.

More patrolling tonight. Princesa, one of our leatherbacks, came last night to nest. I was fast asleep but I'm determined to photograph a leatherback before I leave! wish me luck...

Night off tonight.. Had my 12-6 hatchery shift today and 12-5am patrol this morning... Don't really mind having a break. So about three of the nests in the hatchery are due... Hopefully we'll have some leatherback babies soon.

Went to Indian Rock with Claire and Josh the other Day. About a 45 minute walk from the station to the end of the beach and you have to climb around on the rocks a bit.

Called Indian Rock (picture above) because its supposed to resemble a Native American's head... I don't really see it....

Unfortunately we could only go so far on account of the tide creeping in... You pretty much have to go right at Low tide to climb down to the other beach.. Definitely have to go back to explore the cave complexes and such.

Even though we were thwarted by the tide, I did enjoy watching claire get splashed (photo on right)

One great thing about being on the West Coast- Sunsets. Been trying to catch every one and photographing a few. Nothing like hanging on the beach watching the sun go down.

Off to Santa Cruz tomorrow to hopefully retrieve my debit card. Back on the sketchy bus down the horrible roads and through the rivers... wish me luck.

Baula Baula!

Well I got my wish... Saw my first Leatherback (Baula en espanol).. and my second! Quite an exciting night.

On Sunday, Karen, one of the Research Assistants here, came into our room at 10pm saying they had a Leatherback. Three of us ran down the beach to see her... She was still in the process of digging her body pit by the time we arrived, so we got to see her dig the nest, lay the eggs (into a bag held by someone), fill the nest and start camouflaging it. She was still camouflaging by the time I went back to the station and walked by again on my midnight patrol shift (they're pretty thorough). She was a new leatherback and a small one (probably young).. only 1.4m carapace length... still big for a turtle though, yeah?

Was at the end of my first stretch with Greivin, guy that works here, when an old man we had run into on the way down signalled us with his light. We went over to investigate and sure enough... Baula.. working her way up the beach. Got to watch her for a while and she was just starting to dig the nest by the time Karen and Claire showed up.. Reinforcements with an eggbag.

Greivin cleared away some of the sand behind her while she was digging and then let me lay down behind her to hold the bag under her to collect the eggs. Epic.

Karen ever so kindly put things in perspective for me... "Nothing like having your face right up a turtle's ass"... Yeah I was all up in there but collecting eggs from a critically endangered species thats been roaming the seas virtually unchanged for 65 million years was pretty special regardless.

Eileen was her name.. She was here about 10 days ago laying another nest. (Leatherbacks usually come to nest about 5-7 times every 10 days during nesting season). She was bigger than the other one.. over 1.5m carapace length

We brought the eggs to the hatchery and built her a nest.. 69 normal eggs and 82 yolkless..

Rested for a bit and then got another call... I was thinking.. 3 leatherbacks in one night?! you have to be shitting me. Would have been sweet but it turns out it was just Eileen coming back onto the beach and farting around... pretty strange behavior so we hung out for a while keeping an eye on her until she went back to the water. Freaking cool.

We've been expecting another Leatherback, Esperanza, but we're a little uncertain if she'll return. She was pretty badly injured when she was here 10 days ago... really deep cuts around her neck and fins from getting stuck in a fishing line... so we're keeping our fingers crossed but who knows.

Apologies for the bland entry but I didn't have my camera on me and even so leatherbacks are really sensitive to light so a flash would have been out of the question.. look one up if you want... they're huge

Pura Vida

Delayed! There are no computers here.. pretty much have to wait for one of 2 other volunteer's computers so its been kind of difficult getting this thing going again.

Currently in Ostional, Costa Rica on the Nicoya peninsula. Stayed a couple days outside of San Jose (picture on left out the front door of my homestay... usually quite lovely with the mountains but it was cloudy unfortunately)... made the trip here on tuesday... which was quite a journey... 6 hours by bus, the last third of which traversed roads that rival grand canyon national park roads and included driving through four streams....

Despite the ride.. and the fact that my debit card was stuck in an ATM machine and is now being held hostage at a bank in Santa Cruz (2 hours away) its been quite lovely so far.. Right on the beach.. nice people... tropical weather.. Picture on the right is our beach around sunset... not too bad.

Its pretty quiet here during the day on account of the heat and the fact that most of the work is done at night or early in the morning... mostly night patrols and hatchery shifts... from 6 or 7 to midnight and midnight to 5 or 6 am. Hatchery shifts mostly consist of checking the canastas (little baskets/shelters they have around the nests) to see if any hatchlings have emerged every 20-30 minutes. During night patrols, we walk stretches of the beach looking for leatherbacks/leatherback tracks... so we can steal the eggs she lays and bring them to the hatchery. Leatherback eggs have a 0% success rate in the wild so every little bit, like relocating eggs to a hatchery definitely helps. Crossing my fingers for a Leatherback sighting (we're expecting one tonight or tomorrow).. So far I've seen a bunch of Olive Ridley turtles on patrol which is still exciting but a Leatherback would be grand.

We're also required to help out with exhumations... basically digging up remaining eggs from nests that already hatched and recording how far along they got... Pictures to left and below... One on the left is a stage 3 developed leatherback that for whatever reason stopped developing... it also had some fungus growing in its shell... as most of the leftover eggs did. There was a live hatchling when we dug up the eggs, but she didn't make it..

Picture on right of a completed exhumation... Pretty messy and a bit sad seeing little babies that almost made it. Kind of disheartening that its so difficult for a critically endangered species to reproduce, even without additional obstacles like poaching, fishing, global warming, development...etc. Glad that the work here is making even a slight difference... There were over 50 hatchlings that emergedfrom our exhumation nest.. much better than zero, no?