So I was actually given my "chore of the day" which consisted of cleaning out the old nests. Israel is given funding from various organization and in return must provide them with accurate records showing turtle mortality, turtle successes,a nd unhatched eggs. For the most part, it was horribly disgusting. We pulled out moldy egg after moldy egg, some with moldy dead turtles and swarming with maggots. But then, surprisingly enough we pulled out several babies that just hadn´t made it up to the top yet. They probably wouldn´t have survived had we not intervened. Now, I´m all about survival of the fittest, but since we have already defied nature and dug up the nests, protecting them from humans and dogs, we might as well go the whole 9 yards and excavate the nests the day most of the turtles hatch to avoid unnecessary deaths. After excavation, a group of tourists arrived and we sent the babies out to sea. A storm was brewing so they had to fight some pretty big waves, but the were determined and charged in!
Yay for Sundays (19/09/2010)! It means total relaxation! I really enjoyed myself. Kerry woke us up with exciting news...they had discovered 17 nests! The downside was that I had to leave my comfy bed earlier than I would have preferred to help. Afterwards, I went for a swim with Marilyn and Jon and even got a little color. Don´t worry Mom, i put on SPF 50 all over my body and SPF 70 on my face. It´s a wonder the sun could even get through. That afternoon the sky opened up and poured. I was able to start, and finish, a new book. That night Andy discovered that a colony of ants discovered her stash of sweets so now we are headquarters for the time being.
On Monday we had a group of 35 students from PV come to the turtle camp. They had nonstop fun...we had nonstop work. Andy and I were on bathroom duty and they managed to completely make a mess of the newly cleaned bathrooms and block all 4 toilets within the hour. This probably isn´t hard to do, but since I´ve been here almost a month and it hadn´t happened it was a bit annoying. Their tents were set up close to Marilyn and Jon, and I think Jon was very close to using his military training to shut them up. On an exciting note: Jorge found a box turtle on morning patrol. When Israel saw how excited I was, he showed me their collection of turtles (seriously it´s taken this long?). They have 2 box turtles and a central american wood turtle! And to top it off Jorge gave me a passion fruit from his garden! Turtle patrol started off a bit slow bc there was a quad bike ahead of us getting to all of the nests. When they finally turned off, we ended up getting 9 nests! I even got to see a green see turtle. Unfortunately she didn´t ended up leaving us any eggs bc we spooked her (figures). On the way back we stopped and said hello to the high school group. Three of the girls (the "popular" girls of course) started flirting with Christian and asking for a ride back to the camp. They even had the guts to say that I should walk back so they can ride back with him. I cooly said, "No thank you. I´ve already done the walk." That quickly shut them up bc they assumed I didn´t know any Spanish. Well, you know what they say about assuming :)
Not much happened yesterday except I RAN FOR 40 MINUTES ON THE BEACH! Oh and the high school group left!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Later that evening I was bending down to pick up something I dropped underneath the table by my tent and a black widow lowered herself down to say hi. Joel came to my rescue and killed it. Thank goodness!
Well that´s a short peek into the life of Cybil. I might go to PV tomorrow with Jorge...still not sure though. My next patrol is tomorrow morning!
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