Just when I thought I was getting my own room

Sept 28th

If Corozalito is the resort house then San Miguel is a nature conservancy. Naturally with in 5 minutes of arriving to San Miguel I had to use the bathroom, so I pulled out  the keys to my room and nonchalantly sauntered to the bathroom. Upon barely opening the bathroom door I hear a high- pitched squeak fallowed by a back thing diving towards my head. YES there was a BAT in my bathroom! I tried to refrain from squealing too loudly and calmly mentioned it to my boss. Ten minutes later and dozens of  waves of the broom the bat was gone and I could use the bathroom in peace.

That night we had a disappointing patrol due to very extreme and fast tides. When we began the tide was what felt like miles away and within just 2 and a half hours we had to end our shift or we would be swimming. To top it off there was only 1 turtle and the poor thing had such a hard time laying her eggs. It took here nearly two times longer than a regular "Lora", Olive Ridley, turtle to lay the eggs and after an hour she was still hard at work. She finally had to call it quits after being hit by a wave and her nest filled with water, but the determined mother was not about to quit. She thoroughly covered her nest with sand despite being bashed by the waves.

As I watched her I began to think. In biology, animals are ranked by how much effort they put into their babies and typically if animals lay eggs and leave them they put more effort than animals that free spawn but less than those who physically care for their young. I think turtles are pretty good mothers and they work so hard for their babies. They clumsy walk out of their natural environment and dig a hole about 40 cm deep with just their hind flippers and afterwards they lay on average 80-110 eggs (some nests are almost 140). They then pack the sand in and attempt to hide the nest and return back to the sea. The female Lora turtles will do this process multiple times each year from the time they are 12 years old all the way into their 40's. That is a lot of babies and a lot of work if you ask me.

At 2 AM after putting the persistent turtle's 78 (average is 80-110) eggs into the hatchery I was ready to lay down and finally get some much needed sleep. However, every time I closed my eyes I heard this weird clicking noise. I couldn’t stand it any longer and I went and turned on the light. There under my bed was a huge crab! Yes so in less than 12 hours I had already had a crab and a bat in my room, boy was I glad my bed was safely enclosed in a princess-like mosquito net.