Ok, that is enough for me!

Well, I guess it really is time to quit! No turtles last night, but there have been a few over the past few days. Sara and I encountered TWO turtles on Sunday night. One of them was even a new turtle, which seems a bit crazy so late in the season! Night surveys are getting tough out there. There are a lot of Green turtles nesting along with about 200 loggerheads each night which make the going rather slow. As we ride along the beach using our night scopes we need to stop and wait for loggerheads and greens all the time, which can make the night very long and tiring.
We will probably be out a few more random nights over the next week or two and we will be continuing to post here on the site for the rest of the summer. Please stay tuned for some exciting stuff and our season wrap up.

Hmmm, I really dont know what to do right now. Sleep? or try to stay up and sleep tonight?? These next few days trying to switch back to your crazy "normal" schedule is going to be tough!

They are still around!

Well, last night I was out once again - just try to keep me away from the beach! I had a nice night out there chatting with people most of the night and enjoying the light breeze off the ocean. I encountered a nesting leatherback at about 1am on Juno Beach in front of one of the condominiums south of Loggerhead Park. The turtle was Lucy and she has been here a few times already this season. I imagine this will be her last nest before she heads up north for the rest of the summer.
There was also another turtle that nested on the south end of the beach, but as usual they both nested at the same time and I did not get to see which turtle it was. Oh well!
Back out there tonight and will post more in the AM.

one more turtle

Well, I had said to myself that I would quit nightly surveys after seeing one more leatherback turtle, but.... It really is hard to stop surveying when you get to see a leatherback crawl back into the water with an almost full moon over the water. They really are cool creatures and I kinda want to be out there again tonight. But I am really starting to get tired of the heat, bugs and annoying people with flashlights looking for sea turtles.
Sara and I spent a bunch of time with "Elaine" as she nested on Juno Beach at about 12am. She returned back to the sea about 2 hours later and it was really neat to see her swim away with all the bioluminescent critters in the water. She left a cool blueish trail as she headed to the east. Will she be back this year?? She has been one of our more regular nesters this season, so maybe she will! Maybe we will still be out there looking!

time to quit?

Well, it looks like the season is definitely winding down now. It was very warm out there and the bugs were terrible, but I rode the beach all night looking for leatherbacks. I did see a whole bunch of green turtles and a few loggerheads - no luck with the leatherbacks though. Last night was the sixth consecutive night with no leatherbacks nesting along the entire survey area. The turtles usually stop nesting quickly each season, but this year it seems to be a bit earlier than the past few years. I will be out until at least this coming weekend to see if any show up. If not, I guess I get to sleep at night and catch up on all the things I have pushed aside during leatherback season!

quiet week

It seems that the leatherback season is drawing to a close - fast!
We have not seen a leatherback turtle on our survey area for the past five days now. There should be a few more trickling in now, but I think maybe the waves and current over the past few days may be keeping them away. The survey was pretty tough last night as tropical storm Alberto was approaching the west coast of Florida. The wind really picked up at about midnight and there was a drizzle for most of the night. It wasn't much fun out there, but I did get to see a whole bunch of green turtles nesting and mating in the rough surf.
I think that I will be out there for about a week longer before I call it quits for the season.

quiet for the past two nights

No leatherbacks have nested along our entire survey area over the past two nights. Just as expected, the first nests starting to hatch out now. In the past few days four leatherback nests have already hatched!
The weather forecast looks pretty bad for the next few days as a tropical storm is trying to form to the southwest of Florida and it is expected to bring as much as 8 inches of rian to our area. It shoud be a lot of fun out there!

Eve

This morning as I was riding down the beach, a friend Mona stopped me to ask me about the hatchling tracks she saw earlier. Well, I guess I am used to looking for much larger tracks because I rode right past the first leatherback nest to hatch out this season! The nest was laid by Eve on 3-21-06 and is the first to hatch. Most of the hatchlings made it to the water, but these two were left in the nest just under the sand.
Today is Caitlin's birthday and she was happy to see a pair of turtles that were laid by the first leatherback she had ever seen!

One big turtle

Georgia was the only leathebrack to nest last night. I encountered her down south in the Lost Tree Village area. Listen to the audio post for more information.
I remembered late last night that Carl Safina was out with us during the 2004 season and he was able to see Georgia nesting. Carl wrote about the experience here on Juno Beach in his latest book, Voyage of the Turtle : In Pursuit of the Earth's Last Dinosaur. Be sure to check it out!
I have been seeing quite a few mating pairs of green turtles at night now. The warm wind from the east sometimes pushes a few on to the rocks along the southern section of the beach late at night. So far, we have 3 nests along Juno Beach with quite a few more down south along MacArthur Park and Singer Island.