Last night was a rewarding night for me! Over the last few weeks of riding the beach at night, I haven't really encountered any turtles. I've been covering the north route, from the Marinelife Center to the Jupiter Inlet, and just haven't been lucky. This weekend, despite the horrible windy, wavey, salty weather, I really enjoyed my nights. On Saturday night, Sandy spotted two turtles on the south end, and I did get to see one (Lyra, first spotted in 2001!).
Last night, was pretty crazy. On my first run I came across a leatherback by the Jupiter Beach Resort; she was just crawling out of the water, which is such a cool thing to see, they look SO big! She turned out to be a turtle named Nashira, tagged in 2003 I think. But she needed new tags, so I worked her up and moved south down the beach where there was another turtle just north of the Jupiter Reef Club! This turtle was new and needed a full work up, metal tags, PIT tag, genetic sample, measurements, and metal scan (for any embedded longline hooks). I was ecstatic, since it has been a long time since I've gotten to tag and name a new turtle. I decided to call her Iris. She was a pretty turtle, hardly any marks on her, no chunks taken out of her flippers (sort of a rare thing to see such a good lookin' turt).
Hopefully the east wind will die down soon, and the surveys will become a bit easier for Chris. Although, as soon as that happens, the loggerheads (and the bugs!) will start rolling in like mad. So I guess we should be thankful for the wind, and a lonely beach with lots of big leatherbacks nesting :)
