Last night I was awoken by Lauren walking into my room and just saying babies really loud and she walked out.
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| Costa de Oro's first experience with babies in 2013! |
Yup that is right our hatchery is finally hatching!!! Last night we had one nest come up and today we have had some stirring in three more nests.
Here is one picture to make everyone happy. I got to go do an exhumation hopefully I'll have more pictures to share very soon!
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| What we watched happen over and over again. |
Last year we attended the 4x4 rally in Coyote, and from last years experience I would not have gone again. However, I was convinced that this year was going to be better (mainly because we were not going to get there too early again), so once again I found myself tromping through a giant mud field. All in all I think it was a good $4 spend this year, I was actually able to see the people drive their cars into the mud pits.
The Costa de Oro crew met up with the San Miguel girls and we had a awesome time bonding with them. We were able to navigate our way through a ton of mud to watch some 4x4. After about an hour or so of watching people getting stuck we decided to venture off to the food venue to see what they had to offer for lunch. Luckily, we were able to find a spicket to rinse our feet off in because otherwise I think my sandals would have actually broken from the mud caked on instead of just almost unwearable anymore.
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| Eating with the San Miguel girls |
We all grabbed some cokes from the bar and then went to the other side of the bar to take a look at the lunch menu. Unfortunately for Steph, the menu was not very vegetarian friendly, our options for lunch were such staples as arroz con pollo, carne asada, and a few other dishes. There was one that sounded like it might be vegetarian, we checked with one of the girls working and she said it was okay it only had a little meat. Steph settled for the arroz con leche, when we saw them dump a ton of whiskey into the giant tub of arroz con leche we knew we were all going to be trying it. Lauren, Teresa, and I settled on the pollo frito even though they decided to up the price by 500 colones right in front of us.
Luckily for us, we were able to all squeeze into a car from San Miguel and were able to get a ride up to the rally, which left us with a little more time to hang around check out some more muddin' (as Steph told us they call it in the South) and bond more with the San Miguel girls. While we were sitting in the dining area they were beginning to set up for a giant party they were going to be having that night with music and a DJ. Unfortunately the rally brings in so many people from out of town that we had to get home and prepare for patrol since we were expecting an above average amount of people on the beach.
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| Really good fried chicken |
Since my last post, we have also received a new research assistant all the way from New Jersey. His name is Ryan and a total surfer boy, who brought along his brand new Al Merick. Like Lauren, he too has a degree in Marine Biology and decided that he wanted to come down to Costa Rica and work with turtles, I think the surf and that he has already been to Costa Rica twice helped to persuade his decision.
This weekend we have the fiesta in Coyote at the Church celebrating San Francisco. Last year, if I remember correctly, Tom (Courtney's dad) was in town and we were trying to find the festival but were unsuccessful in our quest, we couldn't locate the Church or a gathering of people. The festival this year is bigger and it was so easy to find it when we went up to Coyote! Might have something to do with the signs that were painted by the Turtle Trax group.
Last week we spent time up at the office preparing welcome, bathroom, recycling and trash signs, and prepping the trash mosaic. They all looked awesome and hopefully they were put to good use (people actually read them and put their trash in the appropriate bins). Yesterday, we went up to help with the festival, and by help we sat in the office cutting up pieces of beach trash to put on the mural, which was going to be the activity for today. It was a good thing to prep since it was also raining out not sure that trying to glue plastic on to the plywood would have worked in the rain. Lauren, Teresa, myself, and with the help of Luca (from Brazil and is training to work in fisheries for the next few months with PRETOMA) sat around a bucket of beach trash and laughed at all the weird things we were finding.
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| Welcome sign |
When lunch time rolled around we went up to the Church to check out what was going on. There was a DJ playing music, ladies serving food from the kitchen in the church, and little activities going on for the kids. (For my family and any other Japanese readers out there it was pretty much Costa Rican Obon). Lauren and I each got a carne asada plate, which literally was just a piece of carne asada on a corn tortilla, it might have been nice if it included some rice and beans but I'm not complaining too much since it did only cost $2. We hung out for a little bit to eat our lunch with Lotti, Erik, Sophie, a couple guys from Caletes, and Luca. The DJ started playing Ai Se Eu Te Pego, which is actually a Brazilian song, and Luca rolled his eyes (this song is played in Michelina's video of the turtles from last year that I posted). Lucky for Luca, the song was cut short so we could enjoy the mariachi band. I thought they were playing inside the Church, but when I looked around I found them in the kitchen with other people gathered around in the kitchen dancing!
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| Carne asada and tortilla. |
The weather has been so different from October last year, or at least from what I can remember. It seems like as soon as October 1st hit that we have just been having rainy day after rainy day. Luckily today was sunshine all morning so I was able to get some laundry done. The rain will probably alter the incubation time of our nests though, now expecting the first ones to take a little longer than expected because the temperatures have dropped. Olive ridely turtles usually take about 45 days to hatch, last year because it was so dry we were seeing them hatch as soon as 37 days. This will impact how long we can relocate nests to the hatchery before we begin to relocated eggs on the beach.
I'm not sure if it due to the rain or the sun or just weathering in general, but, the sand bags around the hatchery have begun to rip and break. The material that holds the bags together is just becoming thing and falling apart. I cleaned some more sacks the other day so Lauren and I spent the afternoon filling up sacks and reinforcing the hatchery where sand bags have broken or are about to break. Luckily, due to the weather we were able to work on it in the middle of the day.
Hatchery Update!!
We have now begun to circle back around in the hatchery. We fill it like a checker board so first we filled in all the black squares and now we are going in and filling in all the white ones.
Eggs in hatchery: 4,446
Nests in hatchery: 48
Nesting events: 169
Babies to come next week!!
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| This is crabby patty, Lauren found the dead crab on a beach walk to San Miguel one day |
It is hard to believe that I have been here for seven weeks and it is already October! Time sure is flying quickly this year. Some days I start to miss home but overall I am just a little bit too busy to really get caught up in it.
Roughly, I have about ten more weeks left to go until we need to be out of the house here in Costa de Oro. I'm not sure I am going to be ready to leave this beach this year. One of the locals was asking if I was coming back next year, he seems to think I probably will. (Michelle what do you think?)
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| A huge stingray that we kept smelling on patrol. The barb was huge! |
Friday, we went up to the office to celebrate Elias' birthday. We were given an odd assortment of vegetables and told to cook something, right away I felt like I ended up on some foodnetwork challange. Lauren, Steph, and I passed the test though and our meal was pretty all over the board. W had green beans and broccoli with salsa de soya, roasted potatoes and zucchini, and sweet plantains with a onion garlic lime sauce Lauren learned to make from a Cuban restaurant in LA. I warned you the meal was all over the place. Of course there was cake. Elias loves to make different cakes, in fact his favorite book is 1000 different cakes from all over the world. This birthday cake was a strawberry yogurt with cinnamon sugar apple slices, it was an interesting assortment of flavors.
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| Prepping the mural to make a mosaic of trash |
We are also getting ready for San Francisco Day, which is coming up this weekend. There will be a festival in Coyote celebrating the saint in which it is named after (San Francisco de Coyote). Apparently, this year it will be a three day long festival and we are going to have a booth where we are completing the mural that we started last year that will be a mosaic made of beach trash that depicts the marine life that lives off the coast here. Due to some bigger storms and some strong currants we experienced a ton of trash on the beach, so with the help of a lot of our locals we collected a ton of trash that will be put to use on the project.
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| Lauren was hard at work |
October 8th will put our first nest at forty days in the hatchery. The first few days are going to be import for us since we will be able to gather a rough estimate on how long our nests are taking to hatch this year. Last year, we had an extremely quick incubation time of thirty-seven days. We've been getting a bit more rain this year though, so I am expecting it to be more around forty to forty-five. But since we need to be out of the house by December 10th, we need to determine this date pretty quickly so that the hatchery will be taken down by the time we leave.
The other day we got in a new volunteer, her name in Teressa and she will be with us for about a month. She's from Dallas and decided to come to Costa Rica, quit her job and sold her house and immersed herself in the culture for a month by going to a language school in Montezuma. She studied abroad here while she was in college and was excited to come back and if she can find a good paying job she thinks she might stay for a while longer. Teressa was also part of the Peace Corps and has an extensive list of countries she has visited.
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| I did find the Beinvenidos sign for Costa de Oro, finally after weeks of searching! |
For our beach trash study that we are working on we needed to walk down to sector 3, that is roughly a little less than 2 km from our house. We gathered two large trash bags full of trash, and we are only surveying a 20 m of the whole 100 m section. Upon looking at the whole sector, we did realize we got lucky in the sections we randomly selected to survey for the day since a mattress had washed up on shore, the only outrageous thing we had to get home was an umbrella.
October is going to be a busy month here in Costa de Oro. We have a few volunteers coming in that will be staying with us almost to the end of the project (hopefully) and a new research assistant. Unfortunately, I am going to be loosing Steph at the end of the month though. Our house will be busy with volunteers and assistants plus (fingers crossed) tons of baby turtles. I advised everyone to catch up on their sleep this week because next week we might not be sleeping to much during the night.
We got a lot going on for me to organize this month, plus towards the end of the month I need to get my butt up to Nicaragua for my visa run! I did not have to do a visa run last year since I was in the country for about 97 days, but this year I am here for an extra month so it's either visa run or a fine, and I would rather go visit Nicaragua than pay the Costa Rican government $100. Sounds like a vacation, but I have heard that it is not stop traveling plus I want to try and explore as much of what I can of Nicaragua while I'm there.
We had a pretty exciting start to our week with the unexpected exceptionally successful hatch rate of our relocated green nest on the beach. We had a green turtle nest in Costa de Oro about a week before I got here, bummer for me that she did not come back to renest because I really wanted to see her. Because the hatchery was not finished yet the eggs were relocated closer to our house so we could keep a close eye on them. Upon my arrival to Costa de Oro, I think, this was one of the first things that Hilary showed me. Last week, I knew the due date was quickly approaching and so I asked Lotti what the protocol was. She had me go home and find the nest (Hilary, the log got moved because they were no where near the log). Maddie (our project supervisor) and Wilson (the local coordinator in San Miguel) came over to help me check on the nest. We opened it up and weren't sure what to expect, the nest seemed really cold but thought we would give it a few more days.
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| Baby Green, so adorable and extremely feisty (photo credit: Lauren) |
Lotti came by a few days later and we went to have a peak in the nest. We triangulated the nest and I started to dig. Because the nest had been cold a couple days before I was not really expecting to find any turtles in it. So, needless to say, it was an awesome surprise when I was digging down into the nest and felt a turtle! It scared me at first and I jumped back because I was not sure what I felt, after digging around a little more I realized it was a baby turtle.
Lauren and Steph were sent running back up to the house to grab gloves, a bucket, and obviously a camera! I started pulling babies out of the nest and while I was trying to count I just got to excited and totally lost track. I ended up putting on another glove and we did the exhumation right on the beach so that Lauren and Steph could see.
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| All the baby greens! (photo credit: Lauren) |
During an exhumation we count the amount of egg shells and take a look at the eggs that did not hatch to see why. Lauren and Steph were able to see one stage 1 development egg, with a sweet baby fetus in it, and a stage 3 baby as well. Since my hands were a tinsy bit gross from playing in undeveloped turtle eggs Steph and Lauren were dubbed the turtle photographers. (Have not stolen any pictures from Steph, yet, so these photos are all compliments of Lauren). Our hatch success was at 88%, which has definitely pumped me up for our hatchery to begin hatching!!!
Our turtles have been up to some weird things this season. We are finding up tracks with no down tracks and down tracks with no up tracks, only guess is that people are moving turtles! Who does that?! One of our morning poachers has begun participating in morning census' with us, and when we find a nest that has not been poached he will find the eggs and we get to put them in the hatchery. The other night all of our turtles came up in the same sector, I wish it was all at the same time that would have been fun, exciting, and overwhelming!
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| Lauren making the nest and counting eggs |
Well, we are just going to keep adding to the weird things that our turtles are doing. Yesterday morning Steph went out to do some laundry and I hear her shouting at me why I put eggs in the sink...
My thought process: Hmm weird I didn't make eggs for breakfast and I am pretty sure Lauren didn't leave her egg shells in the sink I don't know what you are talking about.
So I got up and walked over to the sink where we wash clothes. THERE WERE TURTLE EGGS IN THE SINK!! Some one left us a gift, we were really confused on where they came from. Right away I called Maddie just because I wanted to make sure that they were going to be safe to put in the hatchery. Figured it was a pretty rainy morning that it should be fairly safe to put the eggs in and they are hopefully fine. Well 78 eggs later we added the fourth nest for the night into the hatchery and I enjoyed writing Sector: Sink on the tag. We label all the nests in the hatchery with the date they were found, number of eggs, and from which sector so we can release babies as close to where their nest was.
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| Here is an example of the tags that we tie to the hatchery grid so we know where the nests are. |
We did find the mystery man that left us the eggs. Steph saw our friendly morning poacher this morning on her census walk and asked him about the eggs. He had found them and brought them by the house, no one was there because people that were here were asleep and Lauren and I were on the beach. So he had left them for us in the sink. WHOA bad guy turned good?! I'm not complaining though, I will take poachers delivering us eggs any time!
I have not posted any number so far this year on nesting events, nests relocated to the hatchery, or the amount of eggs collected. I figured since this post is dedicated to all the weirdness we have been expereincing with odd nesting behaviors that now would be a good time to introduce some of our numbers, which I am really excited about since the hatchery was just finished about a month ago.
TURTLE TRACKER 2013
NESTING EVENTS: 90
NESTS IN THE HATCHERY: 24
EGGS IN THE HATCHERY: 2,314
BABIES TO COME SOON!!!
So I know that on my last post I referenced Lauren, and a lot of people were probably like "who is this girl?" Well, now that it is not three in the morning and I am finally getting a chance to sit down and write some updates about what has been going on let me explain.
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| Meet Lauren |
Lauren is someone I went to high school with. Last year when I got home she approached me and expressed how much she LOVED sea turtles and wanted to do what I did, go to Costa Rica and work with sea turtles. Once I found out I was coming back I contacted her and let her know that they were looking for volunteers so they might be looking for research assistants too, and they were! So now I have Lauren from Camarillo here with me. She went to Cal Poly SLO and has a B.S. in Marine Biology. Last year, she began to get the urge to travel which began her journey. She spent a month working with elephants in Thailand (which I am now seriously considering) and ventured off to Europe to participate in different World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF), and spent four months traveling to different farms in Europe (talk about a smart way to travel!). Needless to say, it has been awesome having someone from California around that gets all the references I make. PLUS, she will be here until December, but I lost her as a travel buddy since the airline made her book a flight back on December 10th (the day our project closes).
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| My weird Costa Rican Rash. |
Not only was I excited for Lauren to arrive last week because I was excited by the overwhelming representation of California in the house, but she was also bringing goodies from home. Dad sent her with a new headlight (we have been having issues with lights breaking this year so better safe than sorry), a new watch since my had been having issues the week before and I freaked out thinking it was broken (but it still works), some hydrocortisone itch cream (have not made it to Jicaral to pick up da'kine with lidocaine yet), and some antifungal cream because I got a weird rash on my arm and wasn't sure what it was. She was also given ginger cut candies to bring down, however, did not have room in her bag so they didn't make it (hope you are enjoying those Mrs. Seguey!).
Over the past week we also had Mainor stay with us for a few nights. He is a Costa Rican who is hilarious to have around. We played lots of card games, bringing UNO might have been the best choice I have ever made.
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| Steph, Lauren (who is kind of hiding), Mainor teaching Santos how to play UNO |
This is how I know my Spanish is improving. One night on patrol with Santos I was talking about how much I love cheese and milk, after patrol I thought he might be bringing me some fresh milk but I was not quite sure. A few days later her showed up at the house with a jar of fresh milk for me!! AWESOME!! It has been a treat to have real milk, though I am a little sketched out on just drinking it straight or having it in a bowl of cereal. He did say that in a month they would be milking the cow again and I can go with him to learn, it would have to be on my night off since it would probably be like 2 or 3 am but I think I might take him up on the offer. I think it would be fun to learn to milk a cow even if I don't really end up getting the night off.
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| My bug net, blanket from Courtney, and a clothes line strung across my room |
Returning to Costa Rica did receive some upgrades this year. No, unfortunately I do not have hot water or a laundry machine this year, that would resort living, though I do have my own room and bathroom.
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| My closet/towel rack, the bathroom doesn't get much ventilation and no one wants mildewy towels |
I cleaned and organized it all the other day so I thought since it was the first time I had really organized everything I should take a picture so everyone can see my room this year. I have a bigger bed than I do at home and my own bathroom. Maybe I should stay here at the end of the season (even if the house gets rented out I will just come with the house). Even though I have my own toilet, it is broken, so it is like it doesn't even exist. At one point when our has had 6 girls we were all using one bathroom for the toilet, needless to say that was a mess. I am happy that at least my shower works and that I can store my toiletries in the bathroom and not worry about my toothbrush falling to the ground.
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| My bathroom, it is nice having my own space, but the toilet has been broken for a month |
The other day Steph and I decided that the tide was perfect to walk to Tenga's for lunch. We have to cross the estuary at low tide to get to Tanga's which is over near Punta Coyota. Well, after walking the 2 KM to the estuary we cross and find out that he will not cook any food without seafood in it and that he will not make anything vegetarian for Steph. We kindly say thank you and decided to head up the road to see if the next restaurant is open, it wasn't.
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| Part of the river we crossed, figured it was safe since a local was doing it too |
We took a pause here to look at the time and decide if we walk back to Costa de Oro via the beach or if we keep walking up to Coyote (4 KM more). We decided to just keep walking to Coyote since we had walked so far already. After walking through a couple rivers, oh yeah it had rained the whole night before, we finally made it through to Coyote about 2 PM (we started started this journey at 11:30). We finally got food at my favorite restaurant in Coyote, Loma Clara; Steph was able to get a vegetarian pasta and I had rice with shrimp. I was starving so this is probably the best meal that I have had in Costa Rica ever, though I know in actuality that Thanksgiving last year still wins.
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| My arroz con camarones |
After our trip for lunch wrapping up at about 4 now, we went by the super to pick up some ice cream for the walk home, we still had another 5 KM left to go. We stopped by the office to use the bathroom and booked it home making it back just as the sun was setting! Good thing we got back just then because the bug spray on my legs was for sure gone and I am pretty sure what I put on my arms had been warn off from all the sweat. Oh well made for a fun adventure, needless to say we were a little tired the next day after so much walking and a patrol.
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| Baked squash, not to bad |
Seriously, what a funny name for something. I think I might look into the history of the name squash, okay probably not. But again something that I never really eat when I am at home and therefore not something I have ever cooked before. Thought baking it would probably be the best solution basically because I did not really know what else to do with it. I googled just in case there were specific direction as to what I needed to do. It was so easy! Cut, peel, scoop out guts, cube, and bake! I do not know if it is something that I will go out of my way to get when I am home, but at least I know what to do with it when it randomly shows up in my refrigerator.
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| Squash guts!!! |
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| Largest hermit crab I've seen on the beach yet. |
Okay, so maybe I'm not actually a hermit. But I have learned that I am completely okay being separated from the technologically addicted English speaking world. Yes, I have my iPhone in which I can technically communicate when I need to and it is nice having others around to talk to, especially my family, but I am okay just sitting in my house and reading a book or walking down the street and talking to random people (talking is used loosely- might be more talking to the best of my abilities).
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| Hermit crabs like coconut, but they ran away when I tried to take a picture |
The station house feels like home this year. I get asked by our volunteers and research assistants if I get homesick espcially because I am out here usually a lot longer than they are. The answer is I get homesick and I miss a lot of the conveniences of so many things in the States, however, I like to be removed from those luxuries I feel like I have time her to reflect on myself and work hard at my job. (If that did not just sound really yoga-ish I do not know what else I am going to write in this blog that will).
I have been here less than one month. Last year I had been here two weeks and I was questioning if I made the right choice in coming to such a "remote" location, last year we had wifi all the time. It took time for me adjust to this lifestyle of waking up and working at odd hours of the night while trying to do some regular tasks during the day as well. I feel like I learned a lot last year as to how the day should flow and so I am applying previous knowledge that helped make the transition smoother this year.
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| Not a big fan of large stagnant bodies of water |
In this past month I would not say that I have exactly felt homesickness. I think that I miss being around my friends and family and would to pick them all up and move them down here. I love to aimlessly walk the beach, go for random body surf sessions, or sit in a chair and read a book. I know what you are thinking, yes, I have a job and I love my job I love working with such an amazing sea creature and I am honestly blessed to be able to do such a thing. I love to get up in the middle of the night and patrol the beach hoping that I will get to see one, mostly because I get to tag now that we have more tags in! I have a goal to fill the hatchery which helps me pass my time. I think that homesickness here doesn't stem from the lack of communication with loved ones at home, because I had that last year and still felt homesick, but that sometimes it is hard to stop feeling like we constantly need to be going all the time and relax and let things just be.
This year had very much felt like the second year of college. Last year, I was unsure of what I would experience no matter how much research I did. This year, I came knowing exactly what to expect and I felt like I fell back into the rhythm of my Costa Rican lifestyle very easily. Even though I didn't experience a real rainy season, and I would say I still really haven't this year, my sophomore year in Costa Rica is going amazingly and I am so happy I came back.
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