Screaming Boat Drinks!!!

Thursday morning at 4AM, my dad and I left my sisters sleeping in the hotel room, while we headed down to the beach to check the hatchery. When we got to the house, we found Victor and his friends drinking coffee. They had driven through the night to get back to the house, so they offered to release the 4 babies that had hatched since the last patrol. About 20 minutes later, Kayla and Ingrid woke up to go to help with the fisheries and since we had a car we drove them down the beautiful road to the estuary.

Showing off the pretty shell I found.

After dropping them off we headed back up to Laguna Mar for breakfast, where I got bacon for the first time in over a month! It was so good and something I have missed. After breakfast, we piled back into the car and headed back to the beach. I took my family to check out to the tidepools that were located at the rocks just a 1/2 a km away from the house. We found all sorts of beautiful shells and bright colored crabs. We spent an hour there before returning back to the house.

Katrina, Kym and I posing for a picture at the rocks

Crab at the tidepools

When we got back to the house everyone was getting hungry. So Ingrid, Kayla, Kym, Katrina, my dad and I climbed in the car and we drove to the restaurant on the next beach over for a little  lunch of sautéed shrimp and a traditional plate of rice with shrimp. While waiting for our food we heard the barking of a howler monkey troop. We walked around looking for the family of monkeys. However, we only found one, but Kym was happy . She had been hoping to see one since she got off the plane.

Another pose on the beach.

We made a stop at the office for new shirts!

Mono Congo

Tangas for lunch

Our quick cool off in the pool.

Horses we found hanging out in a giant puddle

We headed back to the hotel around 3 and brought Kayla for her night off. We cooled off in the pool and enjoyed tropical juice, before my dad took Kym, Katrina and I back to the beach. My dad hopped back in the car for the 4 hour drive back to San Jose for a meeting. This meant Kym, Katrina and I got to have 24 hours of sister time.

We started our sister time with an exhumation. My sisters were lucky, the nest had 40 live babies inside and only a couple eggs to open. After finishing the exhumation it was 5, which meant the local all started showing up to help release the babies.

Katrina and her turtles

Kym showing off her turtle

Hatching babies

Babies ready to go!

Kym counting the babies

Me carrying the exhumation to the beach

After a quick snack, we hit the beach at 7:00 with Santos, but sadly, we didn't find a nesting turtle. When we get back to the house Victor drove us back up to the hotel were we got an amazing meal of shrimp and pineapple fajitas, coconut shrimp, steak and of course a boat drink!

Friday morning, Kayla joined us for breakfast where we ate more bacon, before walking back to the beach. The 5km just flew by and before long we were back at the beach.

House special steak

We spent the day opening coconuts, doing exhumations and just enjoying the beach. As we were completing the last exhumation, my dad arrived. So we collected the live babies from the house and to release. It was beautiful watching the 100 babies run toward the ocean as the sun was setting over the ocean.

Drinking coconut water straight from the tree

Kym chopping the coconut

Katrina de-husking it

Me removing the meat

Katrina helping local construction workers release babies

Dona Laura, Don Luis and me.
They brought be a gift because they were
returning to SJ. Its a turtle whistle 

Katrina, Dad and Ingrid finishing the last exhumation

Worried that my sisters had come all this way and wouldn't see a nesting turtle, I called another project who was rumored to be having 12 nesting turtles a night.  The one problem with patrolling at Caletas is you have to walk 2 km just to get to the camp, but lucky for us on the way to the house we found a nesting turtle. We watched her nest and collected the eggs in a plastic bag, we happened to have. We walked the nest to the house and then turned around to head back to the hotel for some dinner. We all need to get some rest because early tomorrow, we are heading up to Tamarindo.

Thanks Mom and Dad for the bike!