Flu?

Thursday, September 6^th

I woke up at 5:00am to a volunteer alerting me of more hatchlings. There were 3 nests that hatched plus random hatchlings all over the hatchery. I’m not quite sure what happened. It rained a ton again last night, so some of the cages might have gotten pulled up a little from the soil. It also could be that one of the nest holes is not exactly inline with our stake, so the cage would then not actually cover the hole. I will have to wait until nest excavations to see where these 19 wandering hatchlings came from. To make sure it doesn’t happen again, we went to all of the nests and really pushed the cages in. Afterwards, I went back to bed only to wake up an hour later with a splitting headache, body pains, and a sore throat. One of the volunteers had similar symptoms a couple of days earlier and has been pretty sick. I’m hoping I’m not coming down with the flu! I spent the rest of the morning sleeping in hopes of it going away, but it didn’t.

The rest of the day I drank tea, sanded some wood for more shelves, and introduced a new volunteer to the parque. Her name is Judit and she is staying for 6 months! It will be great to have a volunteer that is sticking around and will know what to do in a couple of weeks. She is from Spain, so I will be able to practice my Spanish with her as well.

Errands

Wednesday, September 5^th

On crawl counts this morning, the parlamero that I always run into decided to walk with me for about 2km. There was one hole with about 4 or 5 tracks coming out of it, and he explained that it was the same turtle that kept trying to leave and subsequently got picked up and put back. If he wasn’t there to explain it, I probably would’ve looked at it for a long time trying to figure out what happened.  He was very nice and I liked having the company.

Later in the morning, I went with a couple volunteers to Monterrico to run errands. I had to get batteries for the patrol flashlights, a tea kettle (which Megan and Ryan donated money for), and exchange American dollars that were given as donations. I also did some shopping for myself…I got a cake of course! This time it was a tres leche cake. Two more volunteers left today. Now we are down to two volunteers plus Glenda and I. It is going to be rough for awhile if no other volunteers come. 

Look who decided to join me while I did laundry

Later in the evening, I went to Alice’s for dinner and a Spanish lesson. She made Pad Thai and it was delicious! For the Spanish portion, we went over small talk questions for me to ask the parlameros. Usually you end up having to wait awhile for the turtle to dig the nest and lay, so it gets awkward when you run out of things to talk about and just sit there with the parlamero. Hopefully, some of the questions she gave me will get the parlameros talking. 

Junk Food

Tuesday, September 4^th

In the morning, I finished cleaning the office! It looks great if I do say so myself. All of the books, posters, and office supplies are now organized. In addition, every surface has been washed. I don’t think this office has ever looked so clean! The rest of the day I helped some volunteers rake and weed the park. 

Everything has labels and categories now!

As a reward, in the afternoon, we went to the tienda and got fries, ice cream, and a soda. It was so much junk food, but I will walk it off so I’m not worried. It is nice to have a treat occasionally. We even got a ride to the tienda in an air-conditioned car by a nice man. It seems like it has been forever since the last time I have been near an air-conditioner. When we got back, I excavated two nests. The first nest was really weird though. Only 2 out of 12 eggs hatched. I’m not sure if they were bad eggs or what. When I opened up the infertile eggs, they were all dry and moldy inside. I’m going to have to ask Scott or somebody else what that means. The other nests have been hatching fine though, so I’m not sure if I should be worried.

Sabine (a German volunteer) and I went on patrol together at night and we had only gone about 1.5km before we found a parlamero with a turtle. The park is starting to buy nests now because the price is down to 10Q for a dozen. While we were waiting for the turtle to lay, it started pouring! I didn’t have any rain gear with me, so instantly I was soaked. After we got the eggs, we ran back to the park. The lightning and thunder were literally right over our heads. It was so scary!! Every lightning strike completely blinded us…it was that close! By the time we got back to the park, I was so winded from running with 85 eggs…they are heavier than you think haha.

Sad Departures

Monday, September 3th

Once again there weren’t too many turtles on crawl count. There is a full, bright moon right now, so that mightbe why there haven't been many. Some parlameros think a bright moon is good for turtles and some think it isn’t. I haven’t seen enough full moons to decide for myself.

In the morning, I organized the rest of the office. There were so many dirty binders and papers everywhere, so I decided to clean it all up. I’m not finished yet, but it looks so much better already. I just hope it stays clean and organized…ya right haha. Later in the afternoon, Megan and Ryan left. I was genuinely sad that they were leaving even though I had only known them for a week. They were such a cool couple and they did a bunch of great work in a short time for the park. They always seemed to be up to helping out in any way that they could. I really wish they were staying longer.

The rest of the day I spent entering data for the month of August and then drafting an update email to send to all of the past volunteers. Unfortunately, the internet was being super slow, so it took hours to upload picture attachments of the hatchlings.

I went on patrol for the first time in what seemed like forever…it was actually just a few days. Within 2km we came across 3 turtles. We were able to get donations from all 3! The last parlamero even gave us 16 eggs. We spent awhile talking to him, which I think is the key to getting more eggs than a dozen. It was super weird too because two turtles came up about 10 meters apart maybe. As soon as we were done getting the donation of one, the next turtle came up and started digging. Then, when we got back there were hatchlings to release…it was a busy night!!

An Almost New Hatchery

Sunday, September 2^nd

Crawl count has been hard the past couple mornings. The tide has been so high that it wipes away most of the nests. However, I think that the high/strong tide has been keeping turtles off the beach as well, which helps to account for the low nest numbers. At night we haven't been seeing many turtles either. Later in the morning, we got more hatchlings. I love day releases because you can get some great pictures of the hatchlings! 

Baby turtle tracks are adorable!

 

The rest of the morning I organized all of the books in the office with some of the other volunteers. I went kind of OCD and sorted them by genre and alphabetically by the last name of the author. We also cleaned all of the shelves. While I was organizing the books, Megan, Ryan, and Sabine finished fixing the small hatchery. It looks great! There are no more holes in the walls or the netting! It is way more secure and usable now, which is great because who knows when the new hatchery will get built. During free time, I spent some time on the tower lying in the sun.

The improved hatchery!

In the afternoon, tMegan and Ryan made a new table that can be used for taking care of sick turtles. They are seriously champs! I can’t believe how quickly, efficiently, and well they build things. I bet the houses they renovate back in Australia are amazing! Later, I went to El Rosario to meet the new hatchery caretaker. His name is Lito and he is only 17, which worries me. I feel like that is a lot of responsibility for a young man who has no experience working with turtles. I guess we will see how he does. 

 Our new table for sick turtles! It is so sturdy!

During the middle of the night, two nests hatched. For the first time, I was able to see the hatchlings come out of the ground. It was really cool! First, the heads pop up and then the flippers pop up. Then, they all kind of step on each other to get out of the nest chamber. Luckily, it was a quiet night on the beach, so we didn’t have to worry about motos during the release.

First Tourist Release

Saturday, September 1^st

On crawl count this morning, there weren’t that many nests, so Megan and I filled up a bunch of huge holes. Parlameros put the turtles in these huge holes so that they can’t get out. They get so stressed that they end up laying. The other group got 15 eggs from a parlamero in the morning. They didn’t even ask for the three extra eggs, the parlamero just gave the eggs to them! I’m hoping the reason is because of the signs that we put up. Mariachi told me that one of the parlameros (a teenager) listed on our sign was super excited to have his name all over town. He bragged to all of his friends about it apparently. It is encouraging that at least some people are taking notice of the signs.

In the morning, some volunteers and I filled bags with dirt and planted mangrove seeds that we had collected from the fishing trip in the mangroves. They are part of the reforestation effort for the mangroves here. The rest of the day I slept. I'm exhausted from all the patrols, crawl counts, and hatchery checks. 

 The seeds in the back are the ones we planted and the ones in the front were planted about a month ago

In the evening, we all had a of couple beers to celebrate the weekend. At around 7:00pm, two lone hatchlings popped up out of a nest. Two tourist families came to watch. One family was super cute and you could see how awestruck the young boy was by the hatchlings. The other family refused to listen to us and used flash on their cameras. The flash really disorients the hatchlings because they are attracted to light. That is how they are able to get to the ocean...they see the moon's reflection off of the waves. I was so annoyed with the family! It was my first tourist release though and in the grand scheme of things it went well.