This week marked the halfway point of the program. We continue our night patrols, though we are still waiting for the really busy nights with 100 turtles on the beach. Right now, we’ll see as many as 5 turtles per night – a lot for me, but still significantly less than what we should be getting at this point. The peak of the season is late July-August.
Most recently we’ve had even less turtles due to extremely high tides. A majority of the beach has washed away and the water level is up in the vegetation, which makes it very difficult to patrol at night. By the end of each patrol, we arrive at the station soaked up to our waists from the waves crashing in to us. With the rough waves brings a lot of sea foam or la espuma in Spanish. When the wind picks up, chunks of foam will break off and roll down the beach like tumbleweeds. During the morning track surveys, we have to dodge the chunks or else we’ll get covered in the gross foam.
Brown foam from the rough waves. The tide recedes a bit each morning.
The high tide eroded the beach exposing many tree roots.
The eroded cliffs reveal evidence of old nests. We frequently see eggs in the cliff walls. (white areas at the bottom of the cliff).
This cliff with vines reminds me of the hanging gardens of Babylon – not that I’ve actually seen them.
On a happier note, though probably the origin of some peoples’ nightmares, we have a small group of baby boa constrictors living at the station. I posted a photo of an adult boa constrictor on my Instagram (@lucastmeers) a while ago, and we believe this is the mother of the babies we’ve been seeing. Our record find is 7 boas in one day. It’s crazy! We find them crawling across the ground, resting in plants, on broom sticks and they even found 2 hiding in our dirty laundry. The snakes are very docile and can be picked up easily. Each snake is about 18 inches long.
A baby boa perfectly posed on a Heliconia.
Rob and I with two boas in the library. George is photobombing.
This week we continued educating the school children on various continents. On Tuesday, Emma and I taught about Asia. Though Asia is huge with 48 different countries and cultures, we decided to focus on China and Japan by teaching them basic origami and painting pandas on seeds we found on the beach. The highlight of the day was teaching them how to use chopsticks. It was a blast and a lot of the children took to the chopsticks well.
Emma helping Davon color his panda on a seed.
The completed panda seeds of everyone.
Chopsticks! Photo taken by my new friend Derek (below).
Me and Derek. He was a huge fan of the camera. My face is a little crazy in this photo.
On a regular basis the station welcomes ecovolunteers. Some stay for a week, and the money they pay supports the program and research they do here. Others are part of a tour, and only stay a few hours. This week, we welcomed a group of 19 boarding school students from England who helped with multiple projects around Tortuguero. The projects included making caution signs for the beach access paths out of beach driftwood, a beach clean up and installing signs in town that list a few rules to encourage people to abide by.
“It is illegal to dig up nests and touch turtles”. It is unfortunate that this sign is needed.
“Separate your trash and help your community”. Tortuguero has a large recycling plant, but it doesn’t hurt to remind people to recycle.
The group of boarding school students and the STC staff and assistants after the project were completed.
Tortuguero Traveler 