After a day of showering and eating in the dark, my fully charged ipad carrying me thru day w the remaining episodes of Mad Men season 1. 8pm Bjorn and i go out to Boca for another magnificently moonlit patrol. When the moon is on ur shift u almost feel as tho u are cheating, the beach is so well defined.
Clearly identified turtles emerging over 50 meters away, spotters holding their posts waiting for the perfect turtle to arrive in their sector to then entertain his tour group, even the sand being brushed out of the mamas' nests when bodypitting was visible from the high tide lime. Ahhh! Q delicia, no bending over to feel the edges of every single track, no hopeful old track climbing, no squinting eyes and attempt to focus so much that u begin to see turtle shaped tree trunks moving up to nest.
Still, it was a slow turtle night. In the first mile, we had only seen 2 tracks, aproprieted fully by the spotters (when, to gain some pt of comparison, on our morning tracks we usually count on average about 8-15 turtle tracks / 1/8 pf a mile so we r talking about missing at leAst 6 turtles during this early shift) Oh well, spotter informs us there are a cpl turtles on sector 1 (all the way north to the airport). At least itll b a clear night without falling into bodypits, i think.
On we go, and suddenly we arrive to my turtle promised land, mile 1 5/8. Its pulled thru for me before, and it did again times 7. Recordip matching 7. Not only that, it was as if the turtles consciously lined up and decided to space out their nesting 10-15 minutes apart, giving us the lerfect time to work each one nonrushingly, some considerabke turtles even grnted us an apple and philosophizing break. We did, we even marked a nest. What a night. We did initially have 9 or 10 turtles in that blessed section, but it seemed that the same roucous their sororeity girls were causing was scaring them away. That and one of our break conservations haha.
Bjorn and i started having the "30 years old or around there" conversation (hes 30, im a cpl blocks away). The expected accomplishments, milestones, offspring and more.... Cmbined with the mixup of wanting that and everything else (adventure, travel, more selfsih time), and right when we (in our separate situations) saying things are not to be pressured, that maybe it is possuble to have it all, and that age shldnt dictate lifechanging decisions... Our runner up turtle , as if on cue, pops out from a baby palm tree, out from her tap dancing (my fav) egg chamber stage (aka making tidy for le babies) and back to the water. We made a believer out of her too. She was one of us now. Haha.
We skipped on, luckily the other mama a few meters away got the memo and invited us to mark her nest. 111 turtle eggs. My 4th nest marked. I will never tire from being part of that.
Then i tag another conservation virgin and it was as if i was the scorpion. I notched her once (i hadnt notched since my first) because of her sudden out of trance bitch slap, after which she decided the eggs cld cover themselves. Time to be time smart. When the turtle mamas start leaving nest, the most crucial part is one, that she leaves tagged, and two that she leaves tagged correclty. All the other, measurements... Body check, not necesarry if she reacts so franctically.
Ive sort of come into my own wayof tagging, that may endure more violence from the turtle at times and take cpl more gets at it, but it assures me as much as possible i wont notch her, q hago? I position the tagger on the precise mid armpit section (or pre first scale), wait a sec to see if her camo strokes are going to kick in, and then simlply close the peircer a bit, to let her know im there.... And then loosen my hand on tagger to give her theroom to bruskily do her "get ur hands of me move," then, becquse the tag is half way in and well situatued now, the final is to click it thru, one direct strong move (or sometimes more, but only using the one tag, and riding on the same pinch... Which in tell myself hurts her less). My hands end up cut and bruised from her flipper to shell karate moves... But It works for me. At during that moment, nothing hurts. Scars r all good as theyll remind me of my turtle times.
So crunch time, shes leaving at the turtle version of 100 horsepower, click yes! Almost click, shes getting ready for take off. So we pull our bow down trick, that i dont thinj ive talked to u about yet... The trick is to w both hands cupped facing her, u cover her eyes as shes shoving thru sand (without touching her is ideal, altho bjorn has a cap technique that isntin the books but works well). Once she sees dark, like an ostrige, they calm down, this being demonstrated by her head just lowering down.... "guess ill wait til the power comes back on"
Click again. We are good. We decide not to do more, even if shes being sub,isive, because we already disturbed her enought during her magical time. Not cool to think of oneself as a bully, a conservatn bully even. Bjorn and i return to her nest and finish camouflaging for her, scooping piles pf sand to the predicted egg chamber area. We got ur back mama.
And well, i notice this blog was a bit novelesque in size, but hopefully entertaining too.
7 turtles, 1 marked nest (not common during 8-12), and only 5 more turtle tracks on site. Mother nature was on our side.
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