A Turtle watcher's Diary
2009 Season
Monday, June 29, 2009.Penny's cheesecake rocks our world!
So after a tough week with all the turtles in the Med seemingly
visiting Alagadi on yesterday’s changeover we were rewarded with a
pool party at Penny’s, everyone’s favourite event! Enough food to
feed a small army was presented and as usual we tucked in with full
force gorging until we could no longer move! Thank you so much
Penny, I’m sure you know how much we love your food by now, such a
good change from courgettes!
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| Penny's Pool Party |
Penny treated the volunteers, all except me, who was stuck on tourist duty all alone in the Goatshed, to games! The turtle egg hunt was a great success and everyone was gloating with their prizes, Sam was especially proud of his wine, packet of milky ways and a packet of biscuits, which he kindly gave away to the Germans who failed….
Becca, Sam and myself were first on Iki so headed over very slowly as the size of our stomachs was preventing us from going any quicker. It started out as a quiet night and all was well with us walking slowly and quietly backwards and forwards trying to digest, when we were rudely interrupted by bright lights in Iki car park. We stumbled back to sleepy rock avoiding Turk holes on the way and sent Sam over the rocks to investigate. We had seen a torch heading out around the rocks so expected maybe a late night fisherman or two….unfortunately what Sam met was far, far worse! Becca and myself hung back in anticipation hoping not to see the three flashes warning of imminent death from Sam. After what felt like an eternity he returned triumphant from over the rocks with a half naked Turkish man and English women in tow they had clearly decided that the rocks were an appropriate place for those kinds of shenanigans! Becca tried to hold it together but laughed almost hysterically at the Turkish man with a rather round paunch and tight pants and shoes on! Fortunately we were quickly rid of them and back to turtle patrol.
Today has been a day of progress, cage making took the fore and we now have plenty on white domes to protect our nests. The Monday beach clean is currently in progress and hopefully the volunteers are not suffering too much!
That’s all for now, other than to say that the turtles are still coming ashore thick and fast and we are now up to 85 nests on Alagadi alone, there’s potential for this number to almost double as we are only roughly half way through nesting and our first hatchlings could potentially break through the sand a couple of weeks from now! Emma xx
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| A Laying Green Turtle |
Tuesday, June 30, 2009. Dawn green from 2 nights ago
A couple of nights ago we had a green turtle lay unusually late in
the night, beginning at 05.10. Although annoying it lets us take
some good pictures!
Becca x
Friday, July 3, 2009.Satellite of love
and a daring rescue
Nesting is still in full swing down at Alagadi and the return of the
first greens for their 2nd or 3rd clutches means satellite
transmitter time! This year 7 transmitters will be deployed and i'm
sure you all know that the first one was used on the infamous
randall, the male green who appeared on the beach earlier in the
season. The next was deployed two nights ago on a small loggerhead
measuring 64cms in length. This will allow us to compare her
movements with those of the loggerheads satellite tagged in previous
seasons to see whether size has any bearing on their migrations. The
rest will be designated for greens of over 80cms who have a previous
nesting history and have returned to lay their 3rd clutch this
season.
Last night a suitable candidate appeared on bay 3 around 1am and the volunteers and visitors waited excitedly to see if she would lay. Luckily she did and with the shout of "Satelliiiittttttttte!" we all mobilised to begin, bringing the heavy satellite equipment over to the turtle, along with tables from the beach bar (thanks to the strong visitors who helped the girls lug them halfway along the beach!). We performed the usual nesting duties while Robin got the glue and sandpaper ready. We waited for her to begin covering her body pit before we prepared her shell by cleaning and sanding to remover algae and barnacles. She was, in the words of our leader, "freaking massive" so there was definitely space for the transmitter on her back! She was very calm during the application of the glue and transmitter, carrying on covering her body pit as if we weren't even there. When she was ready to move off the tables came in handy to form a box around her as the glue must be given at least 30 minutes to harden before coming into contact with water. She didn't seem to mind being out of water for a little longer to catch her breath before we removed the tables and watched her make her way to the sea. The visitors named her Marilyn, as in Monroe because she was obviously a hottie in the turtle world.
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| Working Hard on the Boat Trip |
A little more info for you aspiring turtle watchers: this female nested this season on 08/06 and 21/06 and is 93cm long, 87cm wide. She was first spotted at Alagadi in 1993 and has been returning ever since. From this data we can imagine that she is pretty old and hopefully we will be able to track her for at least the next year. If you would like to follow her on www.seaturtle.org the transmitter number is: 95097.
The excitement hasn't just been at basecamp this week, the Westies have been battling with some car issues which isn't unususual for this part of the project. The constant off-roading to the West beaches plays havoc with the cars and it wouldn't be West without some kind of vehicular problem! Luckily they were able to get back out there after a couple of days with the truck... although the lack of 4x4 caused a bit of a sand stickage problem and the truck was going nowhere very very slowly indeed. Step in Tony Hutchinson, our hero, and all was saved! So thank you very much to Tony and Maureen Hutchinson for keeping a watchful eye over the Westies.
It's not all work and no play down here though, most of the volunteers enjoyed a boat trip yesterday and welcomed the relaxation but not the excessive sunburn!
This page is a mirror of a blog written by volunteers of the Marine Turtle Research group. Information about the MTRG can be found here.
For more information about the turtles of North Cyprus, their nesting and hatching, follow the links.