Not much to report from last night. We spent lots of time trying to hide from the rain. There were no leatherbacks last night but we did get to watch a green turtle nest right in front of the Marinelife Center. After a not-so-good night, we had an excellent morning. Chris and I saw several manatees swimming right off shore and four small green turtles playing in the surf. Hopefully we'll have a better night tonight and if our satellite turtles haven't finished nesting and headed north, they should be in the area over the next couple days. We'll let you know if we see them again.

Niki's update

Midnight update for Friday 6-13-03:
Kelly M, and Kirstin just called to say that they just witnessed a leatherback nest hatch out! The nest was laid on 4-10 laid by "Costa" who happened to be the first turtle we observed this season. This was her second nest to hatch this year and did a lot better than her first. Over 30 hatchlings made it to the water by the time Kelly found it!

5AM Update:
Quiet and beautiful night with only one leatherback. Kelly M and I came across Elaine at 4AM, just as she was heading back into the water. It was sort of funny to look at the datasheet for her last visit 9 days ago. Kelly Stewart encountered her just as she was heading back to the water last time also. It seems she likes to hide from us! Maybe she doesn't like the look of our PIT tag needle! (I think I would run also) I hope she comes back again before she heads off to the north.

Sand in the face!

leatherback hatchlings

Shana checks in

It was a productive and fun last night here on Juno Beach. Kelly M. and Shana ran the beach while I caught up on some things here in the office. I am just now getting used to working at 3AM! Kelly encountered "Big Bertha" down on Singer Island early on and called Niki, Matthew and Kelly to come down and check her out. She is one of our largest and noisiest turtles! Later on in the evening, Shana found a new turtle just 100 meters outside the door to my office. With 65 turtles tagged so far this season, I think it is pretty amazing that we are still getting new turtles so late year. We are expecting our satellite tagged turtles back this evening.....

Bertha's a noisy turtle

We have just received some data from UCF and Hubbs. It looks as if Mariposa and Pesca are done nesting for the season, and are heading north and east in search of food. Tina and Sierra look as if they will nest again this weekend somewhere in or near our survey area. We will post more information about our turtles and the Sat. tagging activities in the near future. Keep checking in. A small map can be found on the tracking page on this site.

Two turtles again last night, seems to be a new trend. Chris and I spotted Sara at around 2 am. She was a really pretty turtle that we've seen once before back in April. Around 4 am, we got our second turtle of the night. This one was a new turtle. She was a very fast nester and she was covered in a coat of slime, which makes us wonder where she's been. We decided to name her Aceita. As the new member to this crew, I'm still trying to adjust to the schedule but I'm finding it easier and easier. Running on no sleep is not as bad as it sounds. However, I am still unable to adjust to the bugs, which were very bad last night, but I'm not sure that anyone can adjust to that. Hopefully tonight will go as well as last night, maybe we can get off this two-a-night trend and see a few more turtles!

We are still waiting for data on Sierra, Tina, Mariposa and Pesca, the four turtles that we placed satellite transmitters on last week. We'll keep you posted as soon as we hear something.

Sorry about the late post once again. Kelly M., Niki, and I were out last night and were able see two leatherbacks. Nonamay was the first turtle to nest on Juno Beach way back on 3-19-03. She has not been seen since that night, but has likely nested over 7 times on other beaches here in Florida. She is probably finished nesting now and will head north in search of food! Nima is a turtle that Kelly and I tagged during the 2001 season. She looked great! Nima had lost her flipper tags, but the internal microchip (PIT Tag) was still found in her shoulder and we were able to identify her.
We are feeling lucky right now and expect a few early leatherbacks tonight. We will update more later.