Costa De Oro

Eggs in a hole
 breakfast made a the station house

The first week went really well. We already have 7 nests in the hatchery and almost every volunteer has seen a turtle nesting. I think this year is going to be a good one! We also have an incredible amount of volunteers 19 today!!!!

The boys testing out a
Gillian's Island type raft.

PRETOMA has decided to open a new project this year on the beach (Costa De Oro) south of Playa San Miguel, but there is still a lot of work to be done to get the project ready.  So Tuesday, the two new research assistants, Matt and Victor, and I crossed the estuary at the south side of Playa San Miguel to get to Costa De Oro. The idea was we would measure and mark a tree every 100 meters so we could make sector posts. However, when we got there we realized that the pilot project from last year had some sectors left up, but were measured oddly. So we had to make a new game plan.  We decide the best option was to just walk the beach and see what we had to work with and we would mark the beach later. While we were over there we saw the beautiful house we would be living in. It is a 3 bedroom house that sleeps 9 and has a real kitchen with an oven!!!  The is also an outdoor BBQ and a pool. 

Just about finished digging out the hatchery.

On Friday we had a group of 9 come in from an organization called CIRENAS. They want to learn how to build a hatchery and what goes into a turtle project. So we all loaded into the cars and drove down to Costa De Oro to start building the hatchery. To build a brand new hatchery you must remove all the sand/dirt until the hole is about 50cm deep. Then you have to place the posts and mesh fence around and then refill the hole with sifted sand. It is hard work and the hatchery is large; we could easily fit 200 nests in it. After 3 days of hard work and lots of help from locals and volunteers we finally finished digging the hole.  Today we are taking a break while we wait and find out if we can use a bulldozer or something to help us refill the hatchery with fresh sand.

As for turtles this week we haven't had one in 4 days but I think its cause the tides are very drastic and are too fast for turtles. Plus, its the beginning of the season. I think it should pick up again this week or at least I hope so!