The Skeletons are Dancing- Desperation Samba

Over the past couple days a lot has happened. We have put just under 20 nests in the hatchery. The children returned and painted sea turtles on their tie-dyed shirts and they have showed Kayla and I all about a local fruit called a limon dulce, sweet lemon. However, this fruit is not sweet, but rather un-flavorful and can't be used for lemonade and overall not that great. Nonetheless, it was fun to learn from them and see them excited to share their fruit tree with us.

Limon Dulce Tree

Colita with this carved coconut

Maria Fernada preparing a limon dulce

Just tasting the limon dulce.

Kayla and I also caught our turtle-loving dog breaking into the hatchery. Its was around 8 PM and out redneck alarm system started to clank. We looked at each other, then I ran out the door and Kayla grabbed a flashlight. When I reached the hatchery the dog was just slipping through a new hole in the hatchery and headed straight for a nest. By the time I got the door open the dog had already broke ground. Kayla and I must have spooked him because he looked up at us and realized we were blocking his exit. So like a scene out of a cartoon, the dog ran straight through the hatchery wall. With our culprit visually caught, we were on edge all night waiting for a possible return. Then the next morning I headed over to the owners house and asked for the dog to be tied up at night. They were very receptive, however we are still a little nervous that the dog may still break in again.

Yesterday we were able to celebrate Halloween with people from all the projects. Around noon, we were picked up by Pretoma and were taken up to Laguna Mar. We had a great day at the pool enjoying the sun, cocktails and fish tacos. We all had a fun swapping project and turtle stories.

Ingrid, our skeleton.

Team Costa de Oro

Fish Tacos

Ingrid, Me and Kayla enjoying margaritas in the pool

Sharing Halloween with the kids.

We headed back to the project just after 5 pm and Kayla and I went to the children's  house to share candy and treats with them. They loved the glow sticks my parents had sent me.

Luna dressed up for Halloween.

The Weather is Here, I Wish You Were Beautiful.

Storm is brewing on the horizon.

Last night, we had one of the darkest sunsets I have ever seen, due to a storm brewing on the horizon. Knowing that patrol was going to be late, we hoped the rain would start soon so it would pass before we had to get out on the beach.

As we prepared dinner, we began to hear the rain. The rain continued as we ate dinner. It grew stronger as we washed the dishes and then the power went out. So without power there was no internet, which sent us to bed until midnight. As I laid in bed, I could hear the rain pouring down so hard that it was difficult to sleep.

When my alarm went off at midnight the rain was still coming down. We checked the hatchery and then made a very  rare decision and cancelled patrol until morning. This was decided because the rain had been so strong it was nearly impossible to see even a foot in front of you and had probably washed away any traces of a turtle.

At 4:30, just as the sun was rising, it was still pouring down rain, but we needed to at least check the beach. So Victor, Molly and Rachel walked to the north, while Kayla, Mama and I headed south. It was crazy the damage the rain had done to the beach. There was so much erosion caused by newly formed rivers flowing into the ocean, some were big enough that mama had to swim across.

Just as Kayla and I were thinking our patrol was in vane, we noticed Mama running towards a lump in the sand. Then we realized our lump of sand was actually a very pale sea turtle facing the ocean. Anything that pale had to be dead!  But when just as we were recording her as a dead turtle, she blinked.

Just a reminder, this is Mama, possibly the heroine of our patrol.

My attempts at drying my patrol clothes. YAY, October!

I reached into here nest only to find it was full of wet sand. Our turtle came to life and quickly returned to the sea. Meanwhile, I began digging around the very wet sand, only finding that every time I took a scoop of sand out the hole would fill faster, making it very hard to find the eggs. In total, we were able to relocate her very small nest of just 12 eggs into our hatchery and dry off, knowing our patrol was in fact worthwhile. I think I will spend the rest of the day enjoying listening to the rain and watching some Criminal Minds on Netflix.


* We later found out our huge storm was ultimately  what became hurricane Sandy.

Our backyard is flooded! The water reaches over my knees!

Since I don't have any pictures of our nesting turtle I have a few pictures from around the project these past few days...

A pretty sunset.

Rachel made a friend, he fell from the rafters onto the BBQ.

He bit his tongue 

Releasing turtles with the help of Santos, Ronni and the kids

The Horizon Has Been Defeated

The turtle first coming out if the water.

Last night, right as the sun was setting, one of the local girls came up to the house to tell us that there was a sea turtle on the beach. Since it was still light out and there had been a lot of shrimp trawler lately, I assumed it was a dead turtle. So we headed out to the beach to take data on the turtle before it washed away with the tide. However, we were surprised to see the town was beginning to gather at a safe distance as a turtle made her way onto the shore. She seemed to be moving at a very slow pace and there began talks that the turtle was missing a flipper. We waited as normal before we approached her, only to find that she did have all four flippers. The group of onlookers grew as the turtle began digging.

However, it became apparent that even though she had all her flippers something was wrong with the rear ones. As she dug one flipper tried to scoop the sand backwards and while the other was digging completely to the side. So even if she was able to make a deep enough nest the eggs would just be laid on the sand. The poor turtle made two failed attempts before I tried to help her out. By this point, our audience had dwindled due to being eaten alive by bugs and only Santos, Kayla, Molly, Rachel, the dogs and I were left on the beach.

Me trying to help the turtle dig her nest.

Unfortunately, this turtle was not happy with my helping her nest and she aborted another 2 nests. It became clear that she was not going to succeed at nesting this night and there were a ton of dogs sniffing around, so Molly and Rachel quickly picked up the turtle and returned her to sea.

Molly and Rachel helping the turtle back to sea.

However, when Molly, Kayla and Rachel went out on their patrol the turtle was back on the beach and had walked almost 1/2 km parallel to shore and had aborted another 4 nests. They also tried their hand at helping her nest, but came up empty. My only hope is that this determined turtle is able to nest in the next couple nights.

Trouble on the Horizon

While I was on my visa run with my dad, I began getting emails from the station house saying that a dog had been breaking into the hatchery destroying the hatching nests. My first thought was we need to keep the hatchery safe and figure out what dog was responsible, but it wasn't until last night did I truly witness the wrath of the dogs. Since I wasn't there for the first 3 attacks, I only had Kayla and Victor's account of the destruction, which was the dog was breaking the side of the hatchery and going for the nests that were currently hatching.

Around 8:30 people who had second patrol went to bed, while I went out on patrol with our 3 newest volunteers, who were Costa Rican locals. They had been there for 3 nights and were leaving in the morning and had yet to see a turtle nesting. We walked for almost 2 hours without seeing anything, but just as we were walking up to the hatchery, we saw a sea turtle just coming to shore. The volunteers collected all 98 eggs, while I measured and tagged her.

I was feeling quite satisfied as we carried the eggs up to the hatchery. However, when we got to there that feeling rapidly disappeared. We had another break in! The dog did not just take one nest, but dug out three nests! Filled with the feeling of defeat,I placed the new nest into the hatchery and the volunteers dug around in the attacked nest looking for survivors. We were excited to see that we were able to save close to 50 babies from two nests and the other was barely touched.

The entrance.

The exit.

Luckily when we woke up this morning the dogs hadn't returned, but with the daylight we were able to find dog tracks. Kayla and I went out and decided to participate in CSI: Dog Edition. We measured the paw print and then took each suspect, aka our local dogs, onto the beach and watched them gait and measured their paw size. In a bitter sweet conclusion, we found that the 3 sisters, mama and all 6 of the childrens' dogs were innocent due to paw size. But this meant that the culprit was still at large and was also HUGE!!!!

Culprit's paw print.

Natilla= INNOCENT!

Nonita= INNOCENT!

We then decided to create a redneck alarm system by tying tin cans and bottles to the hatchery wall in hopes that maybe we would hear the dog breaking in. So if all goes well, we will be catching our culprit before anymore damage is done.

Playing Vet

Yesterday Victor had to leave for his visa run, so Kayla and I are going to get a little girl time! The only thing is we have a hatchery full of babies ready to hatch and hopefully a lot of nesting turtles, which means we might not be getting much sleep this week.

However last night we managed just fine. We patrolled 9-11 and then we took turns waking every hour from 3- 7 to check the hatchery. We had 2 nesting turtles and released almost 200 babies. It was a great night!!!

One thing I love in Costa Rica almost as much as I love working with turtles is the local dogs. The dogs around town are always so happy, they enjoy life. Spend their lives' free, swimming in the ocean, chasing crabs and coming by our house for 10 minutes of attention. We have made a habit to give all the local dog names that we find fitting. Some include Mama, S.Y.D.(She's Your Dog), las tres hermanas, and poo face.

Dogs pictured include SYD, Mama, and las tres hermanas

Cut on Natilla's, one of the 3 sisters, leg.

So naturally I was thrilled to see las tres hermanas this afternoon. Only Kayla and I noticed something wasn't right. One of them was limping and had a cut in her leg deep enough you could see the bone. Not sure what to do, I ran down to Alvaro's house and dramatically explained that she was hurt and if we didn't do something NOW, she would for sure die. So he grabbed medications and gauze wraps and we headed back to find her.

When we got there, she was sitting with Kayla, just waiting for us. I ran to the house and grabbed 2 tortillas; one for the injured one and the other for the other two pups. Kayla feed the two dogs, while I held the injured dog so Alvaro could clean and put Neosporin on the injury. We were all amazed at the willingness of the dog to let us near her injury. It was obvious that she knew we could help. We decided for the next four days we will be giving her antibiotics to help fight infection and see how it goes from there, but don’t worry I will keep you posted on her healing.

Kayla distributing the tortilla

Alvaro trying to care for Natilla,
but Nonita wanted the attention.

Photos Photos Photos

Just to get caught to the fun stuff, I am going to just post a whole lot of photos. So check them out, they include pictures of lots of sunsets, whale watching, a local soccer game, food and of course dogs!

You will have to wait until tomorrow's post for the pictures of the turtles!

Follow this link to get to the photo album!

Here's a little preview...

Hatchery 1/2 full on Sept 13th
Now we are filling in the holes.