Turtles, turtles, everywhere

Since my last post we’ve had two full nights on Buck and figured out how we’re going to handle working all night.  Our first night we had just one hawksbill, but on Monday night we were crazy busy with 5 turtles!!  It all started with a hawksbill and green at the same time and the ladies continued to come onshore to nest until about 1am, often overlapping with one we were already working on.  The first green I had came ashore around 8:30pm and dug a body pit (a big hole in the sand about twice her body size), but the nest hole she tried to dig collapsed in on itself.  She moved on down the beach and we followed her as she tested site after site.  Before they start nesting, they’re very alert and you have to turn off all your lights and stay out of sight.  We were on a berm above and behind her, where we could observe without being seen.  She continued body pitting until about 11:30pm, when she finally decided to nest.  We had to relocate her eggs since she nested too close to the water, and I got to “catch” the eggs as she laid them.  She laid over 100!  They’re a little bigger than golf balls and leathery, with a slight “give” to them.  We moved the whole lot further inshore and dug a new nest.  The funny thing is, she had no idea and meticulously covered and disguised her nest, when I had moved them over an hour ago!  She was up on land over 3 hours in total; hawksbills are definitely quicker layers, but the greens are still my favorite.  They’re just so elegant and have such beautiful faces.

The rest of the night was pretty quiet compared to the first few hours.  We were all drowsy by the end.  A typical night goes something like this: We have dinner at our hotel around 4pm then head over to the marina by 6:00.  We take a quick boat ride over to Buck Island and start our first beach patrol by 7:00.  The pier where we dock the boat lies in the middle between the north and south sides of the island, and one person heads north and another south at the top of each hour.  Each patrol is about a mile, and we continue this until about 4am.  If you find a turtle you work her up, taking data on her species, size, etc and relocating her eggs, if necessary.  Someone still has to continue the patrol, though, in order to find every turtle that comes ashore to nest.  It gets interesting when you have 3 or more turtles on the beach at once – that’s when you have to juggle!  By about 4:30am, if we don’t have any new turtles, we head back to St. Croix, breakfast, and then bed.  It’s such a weird thing, working all night and sleeping during the day.  It won’t be long before we all become vampires, never seeing the sun.