Project Log

At Last

2007-04-23T07:21:00.000-04:00

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 :)

report from a far away lab

2006-06-23T16:28:00.000-04:00

In case anyone wondered where I�ve gone to and why I�ve not been writing recently - I left the field earlier than usual this year because I had an opportunity to come out to San Diego (La Jolla to be exact � where I am now) to analyze all the genetic samples that we�ve been taking from our leatherback girls for the past 6 years. This blog entry is to give a little bit of info about this work. As you�ve probably seen on our project log from time to time, we take a small skin sample from our nesting turtles � you only need a tiny bit to be able to get enough DNA to do the analysis. We�ve been fortunate to team up with Dr. Peter Dutton at the NOAA Fisheries Southwest Lab to do this work.

I won�t go into the minute details of how the DNA is processed � let�s just say it takes a long time and involves moving tiny amounts of liquid around from tiny tube to tiny tube! But the general outline goes like this � we are looking at both mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and nuclear DNA. MtDNA is passed on only from your mother and looking at this component of DNA allows you to look at maternal lineages (moms and daughters). Each individual turtle of ours has what�s called a unique haplotype (a unique sequence of nucleotides � those are the As, Cs, Gs and Ts if you remember from genetics classes � they are the basic building blocks of DNA). Using this mitochondrial method has allowed researchers around the world to provide evidence for natal homing (when turtles return to the same beach where they were born) as the same haplotypes become concentrated in certain leatherback colonies. Florida has haplotypes �A� and �C� (although I�ve just analyzed another 105 samples so we�ll see if there are new ones � which would indicate a new maternal line). Nuclear DNA is inherited from both parents and it gives different information. To look at nuclear DNA you use microsatellites which are tiny chains of repeating nucleotides. Each turtle will have a unique set of these sequences and the result is that you get a kind of fingerprint for each turtle � that is each one can be distinguished from others in the colony.

So using both these lines of investigation we hope to determine A) how many �families� of leatherbacks are using Juno Beach (that is, how many maternal lines there are) and B) what colony in the Atlantic are Florida leatherback turtles most closely related to? The closest nesting colonies for leatherbacks are St. Croix and Costa Rica. We think that a few turtles made the move from Costa Rica nesting beaches, found Florida and set up a new nesting rookery. Leatherbacks do this sort of thing, being the ocean wanderers that they are, it is to their advantage to seek out good new habitat. It seems that�s what they�ve done in Florida! It will take a while before I get some results but as of today, I have nearly finished all the lab component of the work, and next week will start looking at and analyzing all the data that I�ve generated over the past 3 weeks. I�ll keep you posted through the summertime�.

Ok, that is enough for me!

2006-06-20T13:28:00.000-04:00

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!

2006-06-18T11:01:00.000-04:00

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

2006-06-16T09:53:00.000-04:00

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!

2006-06-15T15:08:00.000-04:00

time to quit?

2006-06-14T11:16:00.000-04:00

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

2006-06-13T11:31:00.000-04:00

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

2006-06-10T10:54:00.000-04:00

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!

2006-06-08T03:43:00.000-04:00

2006-06-08T02:57:00.000-04:00

Eve

2006-06-06T10:32:00.000-04:00

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!

2006-06-06T03:50:00.000-04:00

One big turtle

2006-06-03T09:36:00.000-04:00

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.

2006-06-03T00:48:00.000-04:00

where did they all go?

2006-05-29T09:45:00.000-04:00

lats week both the leatherbacks and the loggerheads were nesting really good. We were averaging two or three leatherbacks and more than eighty loggerheads each night - things were rocking! For the past two days, no leatherbacks have shown up and only a few (30-40) loggerheads have nested. I imagine the cooler water over the past few days has been keeping them away. I was lucky enough to watch the first green turtle nest on Juno Beach last night at about 2am. She crawled out of the water directly in front of me and was one the beach for a few hours digging an enormous nest.
Only a few more weeks to go this season. Stay tuned!

2006-05-26T01:27:00.000-04:00

in the wee hours

2006-05-23T12:01:00.000-04:00

it has been perfect out there on the beach recently and last night was no exception. the waves have been small - barely lapping at the shore and the tides have cooperated in letting us get to the full extent of our survey area. a tremendous amount of sand has also built up along the length of the beach, owing to the small waves carrying it in. so it's a nice easy, clear run of it each time. this week, we begin our survey when the tide is nearly fully out, so in some ways we expect it's going to be a long wait for a turtle. it was.....

this week we we have one of our great friends visiting and volunteering - Mike James from the Nova Scotia Leatherback Turtle Working Group. Mike has an amazing project in Canada and he wanted to come and see some nesting turtles - somehow he is convinced that by his being here, we will find a Canadian tagged turtle (we are doubtful!). Mike also has his friend Scott with him. the NSLTWG captures leatherbacks at sea and they have done extensive satellite tagging work that has answered many of the unknown questions about leatherbacks.

loggerhead nesting was quiet last night but when the tide turned and started coming in more forcefully we started to feel lucky - we were all up at the office having some caffeine - so we headed back out. I was riding along the tideline on singer island when I noticed a large black shape moving along shore in the water - about 4 meters out from me. I knew right away from the sheer size that it was a leatherback. I watched her as she glided along - she paused only occasionally for a breath. I followed her at a distance for about half a mile and finally her shape moved toward the shoreline. immediately in the night scope I saw her ridges break the surface of the water and then she fully emerged. I called the crew right away as the spot would be hard to get to. the turtle began her ascent but as she crawled up the beach but she ran into a large, lengthy deposit of small shells and as she crawled through them, I thought - oh she's not going to stay. the shells were tinkling musically as she crawled over them and we know from previous experience that leatherbacks don't really like this type of beach (the shells are so thick that you can't feel any sand below you). so she departed quite quickly and i called the crew and told them to hold it.

we figured that she might be back and we were right. about 3:50 am I found her at Ocean Mall, digging an egg chamber. our crew arrived in time and Mike and Scott got to see their first nesting leatherback in a long time - one of their first comments was 'oh she's small' - she was actually one of our smaller turtles but Mike catches leatherbacks on the foraging grounds where they are really big and fat so he's used to barrel shaped leatherbacks! still, it was an experience to see her. she's a new turtle so we gave her some tags and took measurements. I think since we wish that Mike's wife Kath was here too, we will name our newest turtle Kathleen. I have a feeling it's going to be another long wait tonight. the tide's not high until about 5:30 am.

one more thing before I post this - 2 years ago today we had the pleasure of hosting Carl Safina here on our beach. He was doing some research for his leatherback book and he got to see several of our turtles. he even posted a great audio blog for us. well Carl's book is coming out in one week (release is May 30) and it's on sale now from Amazon. it promises to be just as great as his previous books (Song for the Blue Ocean and Eye of the Albatross). our very own leatherback project is also featured in the book so please please go to Amazon and buy Vogage of the Turtle: in Pursuit of the Earth's Last Dinosaur (it's even discounted!)...

One turtle

2006-05-22T10:29:00.000-04:00

A single leatherback visited the beach last night. She didn't arrive until about 2am, just as most of our guests gave up and headed to bed for the night.
"Zhang" is a turtle that we tagged a few years ago while the bright comet Ikeya-Zhang (a few images here) shone in the early morning sky. We named two leatherback that season for the comet; Ikeya and Zhang and they have both been back to nest here on Juno several times.
I like to scan the skies each morning for comets that are barely visible in the night scopes. There is currently comet that is barely visible in the early twilight hours each morning. In a few days it will be lost in the sunlight and will not be seen again for a long time. I don't think we will be naming any leatherback turtles "Comet 73P/Schwassmann Wachmann 3" this season! but if you have any good names for new turtles, leave them in the comments.
Night night!

it always happens

2006-05-21T09:23:00.000-04:00

It seems that whenever there is one turtle on the beach, another is not far behind. Last night while we were all watching "Ara" cover her nest near on the north side of the Jupiter Reef Club, a leatherback turtle crawled up the beach and laid an unnoticed nest on the SOUTH side of the Reef Club. They always seem to do that to us! I imagine that the turtle was watching and waiting for Sara to pass by before she made the push up the beach to lay a nest. She just finished and headed back to the water by the time Sara passed on her way south to continue the survey. Oh well, the turtles do always win!

Lots of loggerhead turtles nested again last night. I had more than 65 crawls this am, and a good majority of those crawls were nests. Looks like the loggerheads are making a stand this year. Keep checking in to see how they are doing.

More tomorrow morning....

couple of leatherback and lots of loggerheads

2006-05-20T08:18:00.000-04:00

Last night the loggerheads were nesting pretty good and I recorded more than 60 crawls this morning. We were also lucky to spot two leatherback turtles as they were crawling up the beach. The first turtle was "Reeves" We have been seeing her since 2001 and last night she nested on Singer Island at about 12am. The second girl was spotted up near the Jupiter Reef Club which is one of the few buildings along our survey area that has a seawall that protrudes out onto the beach. "Juliane" crawled up the beach and bumped in to the seawall, moved a bit to the north and found a good nesting spot just next to the wall. A few Marinelife Center volunteers , a fellow Duke Alumni of Kelly's, Kristin Hart and her boyfriend helped us with Julianne. We all watched her slip back into the water at about 3am as the moon rose from the ocean. She looked really pretty in the night scope as she disappeared.

A quiet night

2006-05-19T10:24:00.000-04:00

Last night we had quite a few visitors at the picnic table. Chris Sasso (NOAA Fisheries) was with us to do some work with our turtles and Whitney Eure (Veterinarian from North Carolina) was in town and has never observed a leatherback. Whitney did enjoy spotting a few loggerhead turtles, but we were unable to find a single leatherback last night.
Sara and Kelly rode the beach for a while while we all chatted at the picnic table back at the office. Each of us jumped up when the phone rang, but the beach crew always started the conservation off by saying the words you hate to hear; "No turtle!" I really thought that there would be one or two last night. The loggerheads are nesting really well this season. Each day I am recording about 40 nests which is quite a bit more than last season at this time of the summer. It will be great news if the loggerheads keep it up and break the downward nesting trend of the past few years.

This week should be busy and we will have some guests out with us. Keep checking in for updates and maybe some exciting news....!

nice night but no turtles

2006-05-17T13:16:00.000-04:00

even though it did rain most of the day yesterday, the evening was cool and calm, with no rain. plenty of loggerheads were nesting - many up near the dune. As well, we had the first green turtle nest in our survey area! it was great to see her - they make such a big mess when they are nesting. first they make an enormous body pit about 2 feet deep and 5 feet wide, then they get into the bottom of that to lay their eggs. upon finishing, they move forward and dig another huge pit to fill in the first pit! green turtle nesting is a very lengthy process - some take about 3 hours or longer to complete it. no leatherbacks were seen - at least none by 3:15 am when I left the beach for home. perhaps chris saw one after that as he was still out. if that's the case, I'll post an update this evening...

severe weather

2006-05-16T18:07:00.000-04:00

last night we were able to do only one pass of the survey area before we were chased off the beach by impending severe weather. we waited at the office and watched the radar as the storms moved from the southwest toward us. around 2 am, I beetled for home on my bike, the storm was bearing down on us. by 2:15 the thunder was so loud and the lightning so bright, it was a shock each time it happened! chris and the rest of the crew were not able to get back out until morning - of course one turtle had nested! during the storm but we were not sorry that we weren't out there. it was really dangerous. looks like weather will be wet tonight but no lightning so we'll likely be out, getting soaked! but sometimes the leatherbacks really like the cool rains....

Injury images

2006-05-15T09:00:00.000-04:00

These are a few of the images we took of Venus. Please see Kellys post below for more information.

Please remember that flash photography is not permitted on the beach during sea turtle nesting season. We have a special permit which allows us to capture images to document the condition of these turtles.

All marine turtle images taken in Florida were obtained with the approval of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife (USFWS) and the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commision (FWC) under conditions not harmful to this or other turtles

unbelievable injury

2006-05-15T02:58:00.000-04:00

I am back in from the beach already, while chris and sara continue to patrol. I thought I would just write about the one turtle we�ve seen so far tonight before I turn in. A terrific night out there, calm winds and quiet surf and I was returning from the southern inlet when I saw through my scope a leatherback up at the dune in MacArthur Park. �Great� I thought, first turtle of the night. I stopped my atv and snuck up to see what she was doing. She was already laying eggs and she seemed to be about half finished. I was just bending down to check for tags when what I saw next nearly stopped my heart. This beautiful turtle had been hit by a boat and was sliced deeply on her back from nearly her shoulder all the way to her rear flippers � all along her carapace. I could clearly see down into her body cavity and I could see lung tissue exposed, and several bone fragments just hanging on with a bit of skin. With each breath she took, her carapace opened and closed. It was really the most horrifying injury I�ve ever seen on a turtle and it took me a moment to regain my balance. I did check her tags then and found that this was Venus � a turtle we�d seen way back in 2001 when we started this project � and not since then. Still I could not believe that this turtle was nesting at all with the injury she had. I called for chris and sara to come down � we needed to document this injury and take photos of the wound.

They arrived shortly after Venus had begun covering with her front flippers � each of us marveling at how she was doing this. We took detailed notes and some photos. it looked like a really fast speed boat had hit her. The main gash on her carapace had been caused by the part of the motor right in front of the propeller � she also had 6 cuts perpendicular to the gash � that was from the propeller raking along her carapace. One of the most upsetting things about this was that we could do absolutely nothing for her to ease her pain (which she most certainly was feeling) or clean her wounds. Now perhaps since she was nesting she was doing all she could do just fine on her own, but knowing that she would have been a perfect big turtle (160 cm) had she not been hit by a boat, made us feel a little queasy. She finally finished covering up her nest and slipped into the water. She seemed to hesitate just as she entered the water and she swam very slowly away from the beach. We all silently wished her luck.

Chris and sara will report in later if they find anything else out there tonight�..

High tide

2006-05-14T10:09:00.000-04:00

The high tide kept us from riding south to Singer Island during the early part of the night, which is unfortunate because the leatherbacks seemed to like it down there. On my second pass south, I was able to make it past the new seawall which is being constructed on the north end of Singer. Sure enough, there was not one, but THREE leatherback nests down there! I bet Debbie Sobel and Barbara Kissas are happy this morning, but I was in a bad mood for most of the night.
I was able to find three tagged loggerhead turtles though. These girls were all nesting in macarthur park and singer island. It was interesting to note that one of them was tagged exactly two years ago.

pleasant night

2006-05-13T11:09:00.000-04:00

The weather suprised us at about 2:30am last night when the temperature instantly dropped from 75 to 66 degrees in only a few minutes! I didn't even have my hat! Anybody who knows us or has spotted us on the beach at night know we tend to dress warmly with fleece, pants, tennis shoes and on most nights, wool hats. It really caught us off guard as we were heading north from Singer Island.

There were no leatherbacks last night. There were quite a few loggerheads, and they mostly nested on the south end of the beach. I don't think there were more than 5 crawls on the north end of the beach by sunrise, but I counted 23 on the south end.
We will be out there again tonight. Keep checking in.

2006-05-12T20:56:00.000-04:00

single leatherback

2006-05-10T09:56:00.000-04:00

A single leatherback showed up last night at about 10:30pm. Please listen to the audio post below for more information about her.

It was rather wierd that all but two loggerheads nested south of Mercury Way last night. I didn't see a single loggerhead on the north end of the survey area until about 4am! I was lucky enough to catch a tagged loggerhead crawling to the water at about 3am. This turtle was tagged by me on May 13th 2003 and has not been seen since. So far we have recorded 59 loggerhead nests on Juno Beach, which is about "normal" for this time of year.

Not much else to report. It looks like we might get a bit of (well needed!) rain over the next few nights and it will probably be good for capturing lighting images!!

2006-05-09T23:05:00.000-04:00

latecomer

2006-05-08T10:07:00.000-04:00

last night we began our survey by having a bbq at our headquarters. it was a beautiful evening and we had friends and project volunteers join us for some grilling. it's always a fun way to start out - speculating about what the night will bring - we also talked about the bumper crop of turtles we got last night! we got our ATVs loaded up and headed out around 10 pm. the tide was still going out, so we figured there would be some time before the first turtle. I was surprised to see so little activity - as I rode along to the south, there were no crawls at all, just a wide clear swath of beach, bright in the moonlight. the moon is coming up to full moon phase this week, so it's super bright (which reduces our reliance on night vision) and the brightness makes everything seem eerie and still. but it's really the best time to be out there. the waves are still good, very low tidal amplitude and no bad scarps - really easy riding. by the time I got to the inlet at 11 pm, I had only seen a couple of people and no sign of any turtle. I waited there until nearly midnight before heading back up. now there were just a couple of loggerheads making an attempt, and a couple more tucked well into their pits. on our second pass, Sara and I again came up empty for leatherbacks, but the loggerheads were starting to come in full force. loggerheads often arrive at night just before the leatherbacks do and so we prepared ourselves. But with the number of turtles that showed up last night, we wondered if any would come in at all. we were not disappointed however, after I left the beach for home at 2:30 am, chris took over and he and sara found one new turtle nesting in Carlin Park about 3:30 am. I found out about this turtle this morning when I woke up and checked my phone messages. I had one text message from chris that said 'new turtle'. the time stamp was 3:29 am. I usually wake up when he sends me these messages but I guess I was sleeping hard by that time! we'll report on the new turtle's name when we get one figured out for her. we're always collecting more names for the list, so keep sending them in!

Must be the lucky pants

2006-05-07T09:50:00.000-04:00

Last night was a busy one! We started the night out with Kelly encountering the first turtle (Aquila) on Singer Island. She had just come up out of the water as Kelly was riding along the beach. While Kelly was waiting to check the turtles tags, Sara headed south from the Mareinelife Center and soon found another leatherback. This turtle was "Eve" and a Marinelife Center volunteer happened to see her emerge from the ocean about the same time Kelly was watching the turtle on Singer Island!

The next turtle was spotted by Sara up on Jupiter beach at about 2am, just as Kelly was heading home to bed. I headed up north in the car to meet up with Sara and the turtle. This was a new girl and she seemed pretty beat up. There were numerous cuts and scrapes along her caraapace and she had a festering wound on her right shoulder. She did not lay many normal eggs and seemed a bit uncomfortable with us while we were working with her.

I left Sara to make a run to the south expecting another turtle. I quickly packed up the ATV and not more than a few minutes later I was staring up the beach at another leatherback! This turtle was "Elaine" and she nested on Juno ten days ago along with "Eve"

The time was about 3am and there were a few more hours before sunrise, so once again I headed south. I did not have to travel very far before I spotted turtle number five - "Tallulah". I checked her out, measured her and headed south with high expectations. No more leatherbacks but I did spot a few loggerheads making their way back to the water.

I headed back to the office at about 4:30am to meet with Sara and do a bit of paperwork. By 5:30am I was back out on the beach and headed south to wait for the sunrise before I could begin the morning survey. On the way down I was suprised to see that one of the turtles was just slipping into the water before sunrise. I quickly headed down to see if the second turtle was still on the beach and I was in luck. The sky was pink and the sun was just below the horizon when she crawled in front of me and entered the calm ocean. One of my favorite sights!

As we are riding along the beach or sharing a break in my office eating cheesy snacks, we often wonder what makes the turtles nest in a certain location or at a certain time of night. I think Sara summed it up best when she called me on her way home this morning; "I know why we had so many turtles last night, I was wearing my lucky pants"
I told her to wear the pants tonight!

2006-05-07T06:21:00.000-04:00

Quiet night - quiet season?

2006-05-06T10:17:00.000-04:00

Last night was another quiet one on the beach. The only leatherback on the beach was scared away by a large group of people and dogs. She came up at about 2:30am on Jupiter beach crawled into a large group of people having a party on the beach!
Much of the beach is open to the public at night and most of the time the turtles are not affected by people. There are a few occasions where human activity and sea turtles just don't mix very well. Lights that shine on the beach are a no-no and many beaches have ordinances protecting turtles from such things such as flashlights and streetlights. Dogs should always be on a leash or "under strict voice control"

This morning Sandy and I strained our eyes to spot a few meteors from the eta Aquarid meteor shower and we did spot a few. They were lots more to see with the night vison scopes though!

I hope the nesting picks up soon!

Lots of people

2006-05-05T11:04:00.000-04:00

There were tons of people on the beach last night enjoying the cool air and flat ocean. I bet that I counted more than 100 people on the north section of the beach at one point during the night!
We did encounter a single leatherback as she was completing her nest up near Carlin Park in Jupiter. The turtle was "Lucy" and she is a girl that has been nesting on our beach since (at least) 2001. We enjoyed watching her as she slipped into the calm ocean at about 1:30am.
The loggerheads have been coming up pretty good so far on the south end of the beach. Sara and I checked most of them for tags and injuries last night as they finished up laying their eggs. We were lucky enough to observe a loggerhead with the biggest head I have ever seen on a nesting female! This girl had a cranium larger than a basketball! If you have ever visited the Loggerhead Marinelife Center you probably have checked out the large skull from an adult male loggerhead. If not, check it out - because the turtle last night had a head the same size or even larger!! This morning on the last survey, I saw lots of dolphins playing in the surf just as the sun oozed out of the sea. It was a really pretty sunrise nice end to an enjoyable night.
Nighty night!

calmer weather at last

2006-05-04T13:54:00.000-04:00

at long last the weather is cooperating with us a bit more. the wind has finally died to a gentle breeze, making the waves lie down and act normally! it has been a rough week with many hours spent in the car or the office, wondering how many turtles were out nesting while we were not able to patrol. luckily only one or two were missed and we still managed to encounter several more turtles.

last night we were lucky to have one turtle visit our beach. I had arrived late to the beach - chris had already made a full pass. I'd been up at the Chelonian Research Institute in Oviedo with our volunteer Simona who was doing some other turtle work so we got into town around 11. nearing high tide I headed out to the south, while chris and simona went north. the large piles of seaweed that have been swept in over the last week made for a bumpy ride. We have to be extra careful and use our night scopes well as we make our way down the beach so that we don't run over that hidden nail, or miss one of our turtle tracks. the beach is completely littered with huge smelly piles of rotting seaweed. Soon they will rake the seaweed into piles and then we'll be thinking the beach is full of leatherbacks!
see May 11th of last year

anyway, so down near the south end of Juno Beach I saw a big black lump humping up the beach. she had just emerged and so it took a while for her to get comfortable and begin digging her nest chamber. I waited at a distance until she was still and then stole up behind her. I could see through my nightscope that she had tags on both rear flippers and when I checked them against the ID sheet, I found that it was Hillary - she'd been here just 10 days ago. this was the first turtle I've seen on my own this year, so I sat there for a while just watching her cover her eggs. she was facing out to sea, breathing very methodically and as I looked up at the stars I could see Scorpio bright above the horizon. It was a really peaceful time sitting there with her, just enjoying the still night.

more tonight.....

last night

2006-05-03T11:14:00.000-04:00

Last night was awesome! I was able to encounter two leatherbacks as they were laying eggs on Juno Beach.

2006-05-03T02:27:00.000-04:00

Waves

2006-05-01T08:46:00.000-04:00

Last night was another tough one! The large swell and heavy winds continued all night. On our first pass, Kelly was heading south and I was running north towards the juno fishing pier when I was stopped by an enormous wave that hit a newly formed scarp and shot up in the air almost 10 feet! Called Kelly and said, time to get off the beach! We met down south and decided to survey from the road for a few hours while the tide ran out.
It was just like old times, riding A1A from Jupiter down to Singer island. We did not see any turtles though and Kelly went to bed at about 2am. Sara and I then waited for the tide and headed out to try once again on the ATV. At about 3am, we were able to make it all the way up to the Jupiter Beach Resort and down south to the boundary of MacArthur park. Unfortunately, we did pass a leatherback nest that was probably laid an hour before we arrived!
It was a tough one, and I am glad it is over. Time for bed!

Bootes

2006-04-30T08:19:00.000-04:00

Last night Sara and I came across a turtle as she was just finishing up her nest in MacArthur Park. I checked her tags and then checked the list of turtles to see who she was. Wow, I checked the tags once again and had Sara check the sheets this time. The tag number belonged to Bootes! "Are you sure" I said as I checked her PIT tag. We double checked and verified that it was actually Bootes. We have been waiting for her to return for 4 years now! You are probably wondering what is so special about her??
In 2002 we deployed our first three satellite transmitters on our nesting turtles - Aries, Sandy and Bootes. If you have been keeping up with the project for a while, you will remember that Sandy was found dead on a beach in New Jersey on October 12th 2002 after being tracked from Juno beach to new jersey. A press release can be found here Aries and Bootes had not been seen since that season.

We stopped receiving transmissions from Bootes after about two months and were worried about her fate (especially after what had happened to Sandy) Last night she looked great! Not a scratch on her and she even grew a bit since we saw her last.

Here is an article with an image of Bootes (and me looking like an idiot!) Fathoms magazine

We also spotted another nesting turtle on Singer Island. This one was a new turtle and she was rather tiny. At 134 centimeters curved carapace length she is bringing the average size of all our nesting turtles down.

Not much else to report other than the rough surf and salty air. It makes the night really long and the ATV ride is a tough one. Hopefully it will die down a bit today.

Where did the wind come from?

2006-04-29T08:28:00.000-04:00

On thursday, the ocean was as flat as a lake and there was a light cool wind from the west. Last night was much different! The wind had really cranked up from the east and waves were 3-5 feet by the time we started out at 9:30. Once again all of the turtles were on the south end of the beach. There were about a dozen loggerhead crawls from Loggerhead Park south to Singer Island. Among the loggerheads, we did find one nesting leatherback.
As I was coming back from the south end of the beach and spotted a leatherback just as she was just starting to lay eggs. I quickly called Simona, Niki and Sandy who were up in the office, and said there was a turtle near the tunnel right outside the office. They quickly ran down to the turtle and helped me look her over, check her tags and measure her. The turtle was "Bella" which is a turtle tagged during the 2004 season. She was in perfect shape and her tags looked the same as the night we tagged her 2 years ago. Simona who is from Italy, was amused by the name which is translated as "beautiful" in Italian.

ciao bella e buona fuori là! (Simona, does that make sense??)

Couple o' turtles

2006-04-28T08:44:00.000-04:00

Last night was a busy night! (Kelly writes about the first turtle below) After kelly left, we saw an additional two turtles. The weird and interesting thing was that EVERY turtle last night nested with 1000 meters of one another. Even two loggerheads nested along the same stretch of beach. Why did they all chose that section of beach from our 20 kilometer survey area?? It was not the darkest or most secluded area thats for sure! A leatherback and loggerhead nested directly in front of some pretty terrible lights illuminating the beach. It made it easy to see what the turtles were doing, but hopefully these lights will be turned off before nesting season progresses much further.

The three turtles were all prior year recaptures. "Elaine" - was named after a marinelife center volunteer, "Jupiter" - a turtle that nested during the 2002 season and has been seen once more this season, and "Eve" - which was one of the first turtles we saw this year.

Overall, it was a nice night on the beach.

one so far...

2006-04-28T02:07:00.000-04:00

I am finally back in Juno Beach! I've missed a good bit of the early season but I'm very happy to be back in the field and finding our familiar turtle girls out there nesting. chris has been keeping me up to date on all the new turtles and all our old friends that he's been finding since early March. I've most recently arrived from NC where I go to school but not long ago I was in Greece at the 26th sea turtle symposium where I gave a talk about our project and some of the exciting results that we have found - especially with regards to the GPS tags that we deployed on a few of our turtles last season. I hope to write more here about those results soon. right now I'm in the process of trying to get my dissertation written up so I can graduate and so it's really a tough decision to leave the beach each night just when things are starting to get good out there - like yesterday when chris found a turtle just as I was about to turn in. but I did stay for that one and then headed off to bed.

tonight we had a similar story....Sara and Simona were out with Chris and I this evening and about 12:55 Simona and I came across the type of tracks we'd hoped to see (we also saw a couple of loggerheads nesting). Our big turtle was just covering her eggs as we approached. I checked her tag (she only had one left) and found that it was Elaine - one of our 2003 turtles. Luckily she still had that one tag hanging on or we would not have been able to identify her as she'd never been given a PIT tag. So Simona and I fixed that situation, giving her a new PIT tag and a new flipper tag. we also took a genetic sample. just then Chris and Sara arrived to see Elaine - she's a much bigger than average turtle at 161 cm in length. then, sadly for me I had to go to bed...so the group is out there without me, still looking for another turtle. I'm sure they will post an update on what went on....

Good Luck

2006-04-27T10:19:00.000-04:00

Last night Kelly, Simona, and I surveyed the beach looking for leatherbacks. I kinda thought that there would be an early turtle when starting out, but nothing on the first two passes. As we were sitting at the Jupiter Inlet, we saw a meteor stream across the sky and Simona made a wish. I later found out that her wish was to see a leatherback turtle, and we sure did! At about 2:30 as Kelly was heading off to bed, "BG" crawled out of the water in front of us as we were heading back to the office for some snacks. It took a little convincing to keep kelly out past her bedtime, but when there is a turtle on the beach, it is hard to leave!
Kelly and Simona watched her as she dug an egg chamber and laid eggs while I headed north to find the next turtle. It was a quiet night and were no more leatherbacks and there wasn't even a loggerhead crawl on the north section of beach. The lightning was really beautiful at about 5:30 am as a storm built up over the Bahamas.

left flipper in the hole

2006-04-26T10:16:00.000-04:00

Last night Kelly arrived in juno and we rode the beach together for a little while. It was a nice night and the low tide made the ride down the beach easy and smooth. Kelly didn't get to see a leatherback, but about an hour after she went to bed, a turtle arrived. I spotted her at about 3:15am just north of the Juno beach pier as she was digging an egg chamber. The turtle was "Aquila" and we have not seen her since the 2001 season!
It was fun to go through the notes written down when we first found her way back then. I remember the night very well she was spotted by Matt "Puffy" Satriani and I near Mercury Way in Juno. It was a night when Jeanette Wyneken was surveying with us and Kelly, Matt, Jeanette and I had a good time watching her nest. We collected a LOT of data back then and it was fun to note that "the turtle had her right flipper in the hole" Well, I guess she is ambidextrous, because last night her left flipper was in the egg chamber! Both of her flipper tags were missing but her PIT tag was still in place. I added a few tags and wished her well. Maybe I will see her again in another couple of years!

beetles

2006-04-25T08:39:00.000-04:00

The beetles were out in full force last night. They really hurt when they smack you in the face as you ride the ATV down the beach! They hurt even worse when they land in your eye....

It was a quiet night with no leatherbacks spotted and only two loggerheads. The weather was nice and cool and the tide was out for most of the night. The low tide made it easy to avoid the scarps that were created by the swell of the past two days.

Liz in England left a comment wondering if the beach is narrower than last season - in some places it is and in others it is wider than previous years. Our beach changes almost every night. I am really amazed by the change even over the course of the night. Just last week there was a large (3 meter) scarp that had formed just south of the Juno Beach fishing pier. Within two or three nights, most of the sand had returned to the area and now you wouldn't even know it was there! Juno and Jupiter beach (like many florida beaches) are nourished every few years. Juno Beach is slated for a project in the next year or two and sand was added to the beach south of the jupiter inlet last month.

A little sprinkle

2006-04-24T07:21:00.000-04:00

Last night the torrential rains of the past few days held off. Only a few sprinkles were felt as we surveyed the beach. It was a pretty and bright and the tide was out for most of the night which made the survey pretty easy and almost fun!
We saw a few more loggerheads nesting and also found one leatherback turtle just as she was beginning to cover her eggs on the north section of beach. The turtle was "hillary" which is a smallish turtle that we first encountered during the 2002 season.
She has nested on juno in the 2002, 2004 and now the 2006 season.
As the tide came in this morning it also brought in a pretty good swell which is eating away at the beach once again. The current wave conditions can be viewed here: Jupiter Inlet Cam

It ain't pretty

2006-04-22T12:37:00.000-04:00

Neither the weather nor what we do is pretty on nights when it gets this nasty. Surveying from the road means driving to a beach crossover, getting out of the car, running in the rain to look up and down the beach with the night scope, and then dashing back to the car. Then we drive to another crossover and repeat. Luckily Chris has befriended the local police or we would be in danger of being stopped for being full on lunatics.

Of course, the other option is to gear up and head out on the ATV in the rain. But that ain't pretty either. Sorry Chris.

Lots of rain

2006-04-22T09:35:00.000-04:00

The rain started at about 11:45pm last night and it didn't really stop until late this morning after I left the beach.
Sandy and I were a bit slow starting out and didn't get on to the beach until about 10:30 (those 2 hour commutes are tough sometimes!) On her first pass to the north, Sandy found a leatherback track and called to tell me she had a false crawl and was continuing northward. A bit nervous, I quickly headed south to Singer Island to look for nesting turtles. Nothing on the first pass, and as I was riding north, the sky got all fuzzy looking and immediately after the buildings disappeared. RAIN! I really don't like getting wet on the first run of the night, but it didn't look good. I thought about where to hide, but after looking around realized there would be no safe area. I was able to make it back to the marinelife center before the major downpour started. Sandy wasn't so lucky up north. She was able to stay only slightly soaked while hiding under a dune crossover. Sandy finally made it back to the office and we marvelled at the weather radar. The storm was building right along the coast and it covered the entire survey area!
After a while, we got nervous that we were missing a turtle and headed out to survey along the road from my car. No turtles!

No other crawls were found on the beach this am.

Summer is here!

2006-04-21T08:55:00.000-04:00

There have been a few loggerhead crawls on our beach over the past few nights. Last night, I got to see my first loggerhead turtles crawl out of the water - the first of MANY!
They really do look tiny when you are used to seeing and working with leatherbacks.
No leatherback turtles nested last night from MacArthur Park to the Jupiter Inlet. Once again, the conditions did not allow me to ride down to Singer Island at all.
It should be getting busy now. I heard that the Jupiter Inlet Colony, which is just north of the inlet has had a few nests over the past few days.

The weather was amazingly summerlike last night. Really warm and buggy, and now it looks like we get into a pattern of afternoon showers in the next few days.

Two is better than one!

2006-04-20T08:03:00.000-04:00

For the past two nights we have had two turtles a night. Much better than the one a night last week.
Last night we encountered a turtle we first tagged in 2002. She was nesting in MacArthur Beach State Park at about 1am. On the way up north, I found a turtle nesting below the scarp just south of the juno beach fishing pier. She was just finishing up and I caught her just before she was finished. This turtle was a girl that we tagged on Aril 1st last season.
Not much else to report. The fog rolled in at about 4:30 am and I was almost completely soaked by the time the sun came up this morning.

Keep it up girls!

2006-04-19T11:24:00.000-04:00

So far this season it seems that the turtles have been coming very late into the night. They are arriving after 3 and 4 a.m. We don�t really anticipate seeing turtles early on in the evening and so the first few runs on the beach seem like a bit of �professional courtesy�. �We know you�re not here yet but we�ll ride anyway just in case�. Last night proved the exception.

Our first turtle was at about 10:45 and she was already digging her egg chamber. Tags revealed her to be Reeves who has been here once previously this season. When we finished with her we headed in opposite directions to cover the beach. Not 15 minutes later Chris called with another turtle in Loggerhead Park. This was another returning turtle from this season, Elma.

Most of the turtles we have seen this year have been on �single turtle nights� � which is actually a bit different than previous years. In the past we would have 3, 4, even 6 turtles in one night. The single turtle phenomenon has left the impression that perhaps the numbers were down a bit this year. Last night Chris tallied up the count so far this year and compared it to the number of turtles by this date in past years. We have encountered leatherbacks 28 times this season. That is 6 encounters more than the next highest year. If this trend continues they may hit 100 nests this year. That would be our highest year since 2001 (128 nests).Keep it up girls!

Julianne

2006-04-18T07:23:00.000-04:00

Not sure what happened to my blog post yesterday. It was a nice long post that was witty, sad, educational and a real hoot to read. I guess it was lost to the ether, oh well!

Last night was rather boring and of course the turtle showed up when I was at my most tired phase of the night - 5am again! The turtles are arriving late at night this season. I have only spotted two out of the 26 turtles before midnight. The rest of them have nested very late. This morning I encountered a turtle named Julianne as she was just finishing her nest near the Loggerhead Marinelife Center. I was pretty lucky that I caught her! I had just returned from the Lake Worth Inlet and was taking a break with some coffee in the office. For some reason I decided to walk down to the access and take a look at Venus rising from the water before taking a final morning run to the north. As I watched Venus, I looked to the south and there she was. If I had ridden north, I probably would have missed her.
This is the third time she has been this year and is a turtle that also nested here last season.

Beautiful Night

2006-04-16T12:30:00.000-04:00

What a gorgeous night on the beach! The tide was heading out when we started - always the favorite time to ride. It is much smoother riding below the high tide line as the tide falls than trying to negotiate the beach where people have piled sand and dug big giant holes during the day. And with an almost full moon it was just a nice night to be out looking for leatherbacks.

I have been off the beach for a few weeks and it is surprising how much it has changed. Those serious east winds and high surf that Chris was battling last week have really taken a lot of sand from the beach. There are hazards (rocks, pipes) now exposed that none of us have ever seen before.

The turtles seem to be in a one-a-night trend right now. There was one turtle, new to our beach, down south. She has some wounds that looked well healed and some rear flipper damage but that didn't slow her down at all and gave us a bit of a treat. Leatherbacks usually leave one rear flipper dangling in the egg chamber when they nest so it is difficult to see the egg chamber and eggs when they drop. But due to a shortened right rear flipper we were able to see the eggs, along with "spacer eggs", as the chamber filled. It's just the sort of thing that gives sea turtle biologists a bit of a thrill.

Our new girl is named Annie.

another one

2006-04-15T07:08:00.000-04:00

Continuing the trend of a single turtle each night, I only found one nesting leatherback last night. I encountered "Mary" nesting early this morning at about 4:30am near Marcinski Road. She nested at low tide and crawled a LONG way up the beach to the dune line. Her track was really neat looking in the bright light of the full moon. This turtle was first tagged in 2001 by kelly and I and we saw her once again during the 2003 season. It is nice to see them return!
The beach was really crowded last night and I chatted with a lot of nice people in the course of the night. Sometimes it is just nice to ride along the beach during the full moon!

Heading home now and off to bed. Didn't get much sleep yesterday and am looking forward to a good days sleep.

chasing turtles

2006-04-14T08:39:00.000-04:00

Last night I came across a "false crawl" (A false crawl is when a turtle crawls up the beach and turns around without nesting) in MacArthur park on my first pass south. Knowing the turtle would be back shortly, I waited for a bit at the south end before proceeding north on the ATV. On my way back north I found another crawl about a kilometer to the north. This one was barely out of the water. I waited once again for her to come back and sure enough, a leatherback popped out of the water a few hundred meters to the north. I waited for her to get up the beach and start nesting and then checked her tags. No flipper tags, but she did have a PIT tag. It was "Ara" a turtle only observed during the 2002 season. The funny thing is that she did the same exact thing back then! She also made a crawl up the beach before turning around and trying again. Even more interesting is that she nested in almost the same exact spot as she did in 2002!

On another run down the beach at about 5am, I encountered another crawl up near Marcinski Road in Jupiter. Great - I instantly thought I was going to have a morning turtle! Spent the rest of the morning wandering the beach, but she never came back. The sunrise was nice and I took a few images of the leatherback nest. Maybe I will post one later.

A little bit nicer

2006-04-13T07:30:00.000-04:00

Last night the wind calmed down a bit and it was only blowing at about 20mph. Still cold and windy, but a whole lot better than the last few days.
I also got to see a turtle - twice!
At about 11pm, I was staring at my phone to check the time and looked up and saw a turtle a few hundred meters behind me heading back into the water. Thats was wierd! How could I pass a giant black thing on a night as bright as it was with the full moon?! I watched her slip back into the water and went to investigate. She crawled out and turned around and went right back in to water. Guess she didn't like the location.

An hour later, I spotted her again as she was crawling up the beach a few hundred meters to the south. This time she was staying. She dug an egg chamber and started to lay eggs. No rear flipper tags, but she had marks indicating she had been tagged before. (tags will often leave a small hole or bump in the skin if they are lost - these are called tag scars) As I went to check her for a PIT tag, I noticed a tag in her front flipper. Funny I thought, we don't tag them in the front flippers. But, I know who does! Turns out she was tagged by Dean Bagley and the crew of the University of Central Florida on Melbourne Beach on May 17, 2001. We saw her nesting here on Juno during the 2003 season also. These turtles like to wander!

little dog

2006-04-12T08:24:00.000-04:00

Last night we patrolled the road for a bit as it was rainy and cold once again. We were cruising along A1A in Jupiter at about 11pm and found a little dog shivering in the rain along the side of the road. He really looked to be in bad shape and wouldn't move away from the road. Thinking he had been hit by a car, we called the Jupiter police who in turn contacted animal control. We waited with the little guy for about an hour before animal control came for him. He was not too pleased with the flashing blue lights and activity.
Well, he seems to be OK and is now at Palm Beach County Animal Control in West Palm Beach. You can find out more information here If this is your dog, or know who he belongs to, please contact them. Fond along A1A in Jupiter just North of Marcinski Road.

No turtles!

Happy little puffy white clouds

2006-04-11T09:49:00.000-04:00

That cloud looks angry!
Last night was another tough one on the beach. I was unable to ride the ATV for a good portion of the night due to the high winds, waves and rain. At one point during the night, the wind was blowing around 40mph! No turtles nested though and I was able to make a complete run down the beach this AM as the sun was coming up.

No too pleasant

2006-04-10T07:01:00.000-04:00

A yucky night on the beach! The wind is blowing 20-30mph out of the east right now and we have had a gust of 37mph here along the beach a little while ago. The waves are really beginning to build and some of the beach has been washed over up to the dune. I have been hiding from the thunderstorms all night. The weather knocked the power out at the Marinelife Center a few times and the Jupiter Lighthouse is not functioning. I was at the Jupiter Inlet and was staring into the inlet for a good while before I realized the lighthouse was not lit. Kinda wierd that the light would be out just at the time when boaters probably need it most! Although I gather GPS has really diminished the need for lighthouses....

There are quite a few places to dodge the rain when surveying. I will often hide under a beach cabana lifeguard stand or even a dune crossover, but there is only one safe place to be when there is lightning in the area - the office! Of course, that is where I happened to be hiding when a leatherback crawled out of the surf into a thunderstorm to nest. Why do they always do that??

The wind, rain and lighting continued all night but I was able to make a few passes. Happy to report that I did not miss any other turtles.

No turtles

2006-04-09T08:29:00.000-04:00

Not much to report from last night. The scarp did form as expected and blocked off most of the upper beach for turtles. No crawls were spotted before the high tide at sunrise, so maybe the turtles knew it would be a tough crawl!

drum circle

2006-04-08T09:55:00.000-04:00

No turtles on our beach last night. The wind was cranking out of the south and created a decent 2 foot scarp along some sections of the beach by sunrise. It should be a fun night tonight! (Sandy will stay off the beach!)

For most of the night there was a large drum circle party happening on Jupiter Beach. I thought it looked like a nice way to spend the night. Hanging out with friends, music and nature. What really bothered me was the amount of trash left on the beach by the group! There were dozens of plastic cups, beer bottles and a few plastic bags. Please pick up your trash before leaving the beach! It presents a hazard to wildlife and it ruins my morning picking up other peoples junk!

long night

2006-04-07T10:49:00.000-04:00

Last night seemed to drag on forever! I only saw a few people and did not speak to a single person the entire night. At around 4am, I was getting tired and looking forward to the sunrise and the night ending when I spotted the first turtle. She had just popped out of the water and she was big. I watched her crawl up the beach before I headed up to the Jupiter Inlet to look for other turtles - nothing. I went back down the beach and watched her through the night scope as she dug an egg chamber very slowly. I knew she had a missing flipper or something because she took forever to dig. When she finished, I checked her for tags and she did not have any. Another new turtle? She had a wound on her carapace that looked very familiar to me but she did not have a PIT tag. Our flipper tags will sometimes come loose and some turtle have lost them after a few years, but losing a PIT tag is very rare. I really think that this turtle has been here before and I will go through all of our datasheets to see if I can match the injury.

After working up the turtle, I buzzed south to find another turtle just finishing up her nest. She had tags and a check of the database turned up the name "Oregon"
Oregon was one of our best nesting turtles from LAST season. She is back again! She has now nested here on Juno during the 2003, 2005 and 2006 seasons. Pretty cool.

Foxy

2006-04-06T10:11:00.000-04:00

I'm sure that nobody believed me when I said that a grey fox visits the picnic table outside my office each night. But here is proof!

I find this curious fellow each night at about 9pm and them again at about 3:30am. I am not sure why he is on that schedule and he startles me every time I spot him. Grey foxes are native to Florida and they can often be found near the beach.

Again, I had a single turtle last night. "Reeves" has been nesting on Juno since the 2001 season and is one turtle that is actually growing. She is a really fat turtle! Her carapace measures 158 centimeters. This is not really that long, but she is rotund! She looks like a big rubbery barrel with flippers and a head!

Oops.

2006-04-05T06:49:00.000-04:00

I guess I forgot to update the log yesterday. Sorry.

On Monday night, I encountered "Kalindi" once again. She did not lay eggs this time either. Her tail has now become quite swollen and she seems to be struggling to lay eggs. I hope that she has not ingested plastic bags the way the turtle "Sara" did last season. Although Sara did eventually lay eggs after plastic was removed, none of them ever developed. We will see if Kalindi comes back to attempt another nest.

Last night was rather pleasant on the beach. There was a bit of a cool front that passed and it created a pretty thunderstorm offshore that kept me entertained for most of the night. As you know from reading these posts over the past few years, I am a bit of a lightning photographer. I probably have 200 lightning images in my library and never tire of shooting thunderstorms!

There was a new turtle encountered last night. I spotted her coming out of the water at about 2am near the marinelife center. She is our third smallest turtle measuring 132 centimeters. That is tiny for a leatherback! She will be named "Bernadette" in honor of a group of elementary school children at St. Bernadette School in Lancaster, Ohio.

I kinda like the one turtle a night trend, but two a night would be more fun!

An old friend

2006-04-03T07:06:00.000-04:00

Last night I encountered a turtle we named during the 2003 season. A good friend of ours and the volunteer accountant at the Marinelife Center, Barbara Geyer passed away during the summer of 2003. We named a turtle "BG" for her at the time. It was a sad period for all of us, and it was nice to recall some of those times we spent with Barbara last night. Happy to report that "BG" is looking fat and healthy. A blood test performed last night revealed that she is in great condition! Full blood results will be available shortly.

We started the night off with a BBQ at the center with food and drink. It was a really nice way to start the night, but I am really tired now! It was a long night.

confusing

2006-04-02T08:15:00.000-04:00

This morning I was taking a break in the office at about 2am. I didn't think I was in there very long, but before I knew it, the clock said 3:15am! I was confused once again at about 4:30 am when all of the fisherman and beach walkers arrived at the beach. Why were they up so early?? It finally dawned on me that I forgot that the clocks changed last night! I really do not like the daylight savings change during leatherback season. It means an extra hour of surveying before the sun comes up...

No turtles on our survey area last night.

Coast Guard

2006-04-01T07:13:00.000-05:00

The wind finally died down last night and it was quite a bit warmer. On my first run south along the beach I noticed a bunch of police and coast guard boats offshore. A helicopter showed up after a while and searched the area near Lost Tree Village for most of the night. I found out this morning that someone had reported seeing three flares offshore and they were looking for a stranded vessel.

I did come across a turtle crawling out of the surf at about 10:30pm near the Seminole Golf Course. It was another new turtle! A few of the Loggerhead Marinelife Center volunteers (Thomas, Joe, Veterinarian Nancy Mettee and Greg) watched as I tagged and measured her. She had quite a few barnacles on her and she was really spotty. As Kelly would say, "she had lots of pretty white spots"! Nancy decided to name her "Dita"

No other turtles spotted between the two inlets.

Sometimes they do come back!

2006-03-31T06:13:00.000-05:00

A majority of our turtles are observed nesting only a few times each season, but a few of them do nest regularly on our beach. Last night at about 4am I watched a big shiny leatherback crawling from the surf near the Ocean Royale condominiums! It is always exciting to see them crawl out of the water and take the long walk up the beach. This turtle was Eve, the first turtle of the season that we observed on March 20th - ten days ago.
No other turtles were spotted last night. The weather wasn't too pleasant with the wind cranking out of the east at about 15 to 20 mph. Now it is time to shake the salt off and head to bed for the day.

Return of KIBS

2006-03-30T12:41:00.000-05:00

Last year I posted about Killer Invisible Beach Scarps (original post here). Well, the KIBS were back with a vengance last night. Nothing like an invisible surprise in the dark to get the adrenalin pumping and keep you awake on the beach! Bruised ego aside, it was a quiet night. Just breezy and salty. The wind has a knack for catching salt spray and depositing it directly in your face. It's merely unpleasant - unless you wear glasses. If you wear glasses, at some point you realize that the world has become even darker, and much hazier, than when you started out and you've lost the ability to make out much detail on the beach. I keep fantasizing about someone inventing those tear-off mudshields that motocross racers use on their goggles for my glasses.

New ATV

2006-03-29T09:01:00.000-05:00

Last night I had some help on the beach! Niki and Sandy helped me for half of the night on the brand new ATV. We are extremely grateful to one of the projects best supporters, Betty Fournies, who has purchased a new Honda ATV for us. This new bike will allow us completely patrol our survey area safely and comfortably!

All of you Project Log readers can also support the project by making a donation or by adopting a leatherback sea turtle. For more details, contact Jessica Perkins at 561-627-8280 x 106

No turtles last night, but I bet there will be a few tonight!

Monday night

2006-03-28T17:30:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the late post!

Monday night was a lot quieter than the night before. The tide was out for most of the night and it was pretty bright out there on the beach. We ride along the beach on our ATV's at night with no lights, so we are thankful when there are a few clouds to reflect some of the sky glow.

There was one turtle last night - a new girl. I encountered her in Carlin Park at about 2am as she was covering her nest. The tide was out and she had to crawl a really long distance to find some dry sand to nest. The track was really pretty in the glow.
She was a new turtle and I decided to name her "Tallulah" for our friends out in Colorado!

Cold and busy!

2006-03-27T07:28:00.000-05:00

Last night was another cold one with the temperature dropping into the 40's once again. The turtles didn't seem to mind. I saw 4 of them!

The first leatherback arrived at about 1:30am near the Jupiter Reef Club. I really wasn't expecting to come across her in the cold and I had to do a double take when I first saw her track. I had to laugh when I checked her tags. It was "Windy" a turtle that Kelly and I tagged on another very cold night back during the 2003 season. I wonder where her friend "Icy" is?

On my way back down the beach, I spotted another turtle. This was a new untagged turtle and was in kind of a bad mood throwing cold dry sand in my face! I quickly tagged her and and headed down the beach. I decided to name her "Cleopatra" - a name suggested by a blog reader in England!

I was able to take a run down to the Lake Worth Inlet while the tide was low and on my way back to the office to warm up I came across another turtle nesting in MacArthur Park. This one was a turtle we saw only once last year and was nesting again this season! I sat with her for a while and watched her cover her nest before deciding it was too cold to be outside anymore. I headed north once again to warm up with some hot coffee. I didn't get very far before I spotted another track up the beach! The turtle was all the way up near the dune and was facing the water. I love it when they do that! It was really dark at this spot, but I tried to take a picture to show the view. She looked sort of majestic laying on a big rise in the sand looking back out to see as Venus was rising over the water. She was a BIG turtle and one that we have not seen in quite some time. "Jupiter" was the first turtle observed during the 2002 season and has not been seen since. She must be living right, because she was FAT! I guess that is kinda rude, but she looked like she was going to bust out of her carapace!

What a night!

This morning, the swell was still pushing the water up the beach and made the morning run very hard. The beach is blocked from the ATV in a few spots and is covered in water in other locations. Hopefully it will die down a bit today and maybe even warm up a bit!

Too cold for us!

2006-03-26T04:30:00.000-05:00

An hopefully too cold for the leatherbacks. We had to quit early tonight due to the cold temperatures. The temp. was 48 degrees with a very cold wind chill of 42 (about 33 degrees when riding on the ATV!)
The tide is also racing in with a very large swell pushing water up the beach. All in all not a very pleasant night to be on the beach. The stars are amazing though, and we did see quite a few meteorites.

Cold and windy night

2006-03-25T06:09:00.000-05:00

This morning the weather station at the marinelife center recorded a low temperature of 48 degrees. It sure did feel a lot colder than that out there on the ATV all night! I did spot one turtle though! Kalindi was spotted at around 1:30am nesting near the Seminole Golf Course. She did not lay any eggs though. She crawled up the beach, dug an egg chamber, waited about 2 hours and then covered up her empty "nest" Not really sure why she was unable to lay any eggs. Maybe she just wasn't ready to lay eggs?? Kelly and I watched a leatherback named "Ridgy" do the same thing for a few hours during the 2001 season and the first turtle of the 2004 season did not lay any eggs either. Since she is a regular nester on Juno Beach, (she has was first seen on Juno Beach during the 2003 season and was our first one year recapture - nesting again in 2004) Maybe we will see her again.

Lights

2006-03-24T09:53:00.000-05:00

No turtles to report from last night. The night started out very wet and rainy, but the rain pants and jacket did the job! It was a very quiet night and I did not see a single person on the beach that was not working. I chatted for a bit with Shannon who is working for Chris Peretta at DB Ecological Services. Shannon was monitoring the Jupiter Inlet dredging project. The project is occuring during turtle season and the permits require a person to monitor for nesting turtles - although if I were a leatherback, I would stay away from the bright lights of the bulldozers!

I also met two guys at around 3:30 am working for Palm Beach County. They were adding shields to the traffic lights and turning off the streetlights along A1A. It was amazing to see the differnece on the beach when the lights were shielded! Although it was a bit dark without my night scope.

Folks have been sending lots of good names for new leatherbacks! I have a list now and will use it when we need a new name. Hopefully I will get to pull out the list tonight!

Daisy

2006-03-23T05:44:00.000-05:00

No leatherbacks were spotted nesting in our survey area last night. I did come across the remains of "Daisy" the 2004 season leatherback turtle that was found dead after being hit by a boat last week. Her bones are washing up on the beach near the Jupiter Reef Club about two miles north of where she was originally found. We often find turtle bones on the beach here, but leatherback bones are rare and unmistakable. They are GIANT! I salvaged a few of them to display here at the Marinelife Center.

After a marathon session, I am getting ready to put the ATV away and head home for some well needed sleep. As Sandy said yesterday, I spent the day netting sea turtles in the Lake Worth Lagoon. The conditions were not that great - it was really windy, but we did catch two juvenile green turtles. I took a lot of photos and will post them on this website in the next day or two.

2006-03-22T11:45:00.000-05:00

Chris asked me to post for him today because he is a crazy man! He should be sleeping but after a full night on the beach, he is working with Inwater Research Group on Lake Worth Lagoon today. They are setting nets to capture turtles in order to assess the population in the Lagoon.

As for the beach last night, no turtles. But we expect that within the next week or so the season will swing into full gear for real.

Some girls are bigger than others...

2006-03-21T07:33:00.000-05:00

I was happily riding along the beach last night listening to The Smiths song "Some girls are bigger than others" when I happened across a GIANT black thing up the beach near Mercury Road in Juno Beach. It was my first leatherback of the season, and she was definitely bigger than others!
When I saw that she was laying eggs through my night scope I approached her and checked for tags - none. A new turtle! She was a perfect leatherback, not a scratch on her and she was large. A bit bigger than our average size at 159 centimeters, but she seemed larger than most.
I gave her a few new tags and left her to finish nesting. Nothing else to report from last night. Getting sleepy now and getting ready for a good days sleep.

If you have a good name for this turtle, leave a comment below and maybe we'll name her for you!

Venus

2006-03-20T05:26:00.000-05:00

As the planet Venus rises in the east before the sun, I am packing up and heading off to bed. It was a nice night last night with a warm salty breeze off the ocean. I thought there would be a turtle or two, but none were spotted.
There should be a few turtles in the next few days as we head deeper into leatherback season. If you take a look at in the archives (over on the right) you will notice that we spot turtles regularly beginning on about the 20th of March.

lonely

2006-03-19T04:45:00.000-05:00

It was a very quiet night on the beach. Only a few people enjoying the moonrise and cool temperatures. No turtles have nested yet, and I am heading out for a final pass before heading off to bed.

2006-03-18T14:46:00.000-05:00

It was a gorgeous night on the beach - after a long day on the beach.

Friday morning we received a call reporting that the Coast Guard had spotted "the biggest turtle ever" floating offshore. It was Daisy. We were hoping to get her back - we wanted to learn more about what had happened to her. Nicole, a Marinelife Center turtle rehab volunteer, and I headed down the beach to see if we could find her. She was hard to miss floating on the very calm ocean but very sad to see. She was about 30 yards offshore and drifting in.

We knew it would a little bit more time before she was beached again so we headed down the beach to check out some amazing shell sculptures that Chris and I had seen a couple of nights ago. Coming across these as we drove down a deserted beach at night was like finding a treasure. Thanks to the artist(s) that left these behind!

In the meantime, Daisy did float ashore and we did our best, along with the help of half a dozen construction workers, to pull her up the beach - but we could not budge her (700-800 pounds is a lot of turtle). We knew that she would probably wash back out at high tide later that day. So we called in Nikki and her friend Brenda, along with another volunteer, Jeff, to perform a rudimentary necropsy and further investigate her condition.

Unfortunately our access time was limited and we were not able to learn all we wanted, but we did determine the cause of death. It was obvious that a boat had hit her, but we were unsure about whether it was before or after she died. Sadly, it appears that she was a robust, fat, healthy turtle who was most certainly killed by the boat that hit her. Her trachea was filled with clotted blood, which indicates that she was alive when she was hit.

Since she was last here in 2004, we suspect she may have come back to nest after a year off. It�s such a sad thing.

We sure would love to see a beautiful healthy leatherback on the beach doing what they�ve done for so many millions of years . . .

But last night it was not to be. Maybe tonight is the night.

Sad night

2006-03-17T08:04:00.000-05:00

Last night I saw my first leatherback of the season, but unfortunately she was dead. As I was making my first pass south along the beach, I saw the unmistakable shape of a leatherback in the surf. She was facing to the south and I watched her for a bit before realizing that she was not moving. When I got closer I immediately knew what had happened. There were three or four long slices in her carapace from a large boat propeller. I checked her tags and was really bummed when I found that she did indeed have two flipper tags and a PIT tag. The numbers were ours, I checked our database to find out the turtle was named "Daisy" Daisy was seen only once on Juno Beach during the 2004 season. She was spotted nesting on 6-23-04 and was actually the last turtle that was spotted that season.

The tide has now taken Daisy back out to sea and sadly, it really does look as if she wants to keep swimming.

This is the second tagged turtle to wash up in the past 24 hours! Dean Bagley's turtle on Tuesday morning was first observed nesting on Melbourne Beach in 2005.

Oh yeah, there were two nests in our survey area last night!! I was unable to reach one of the turtles due to the recent beach erosion, and I missed the other one while being tied up with some police activity on the beach.

I bet there will be another one tonight and hopefully we will see her. Night night.

Nothing to report

2006-03-16T09:26:00.000-05:00

Last night, Sandy and looked for leatherback on our survey area. No turtles to report. Maybe tonight!
On a sad note, Dean Bagley from the University of Central Florida called me this am to report a dead leatherback turtle. This turtle had a PIT tag and we were unsure if it was one of ours. It turned out that it was a leatherback tagged last season on Melbourne Beach. Was she coming back to nest?? They will be taking a closer look to see if they can determine the cause of her death.

A new season

2006-03-09T16:43:00.000-05:00

Well, it is finally here. The 2006 leatherback field season has begun! There are now three leatherback nests in the state as far as we know. There have not been any nests on our survey area yet, but any day now!
I will be beginning our nightly patrols starting this upcoming weekend.

Stay tuned!

2006-02-24T21:43:00.000-05:00

Tracking update

2005-12-29T16:09:00.001-05:00

Here is an update on our turtles that are currently being tracked on the website.
Aurora has now travelled 11,380 kilometers since we first "met" her. She is currently 4,524 East Southeast of Juno Beach near the Cape Verde Islands.

Rosalie is now moving in the same general direction as Aurora and has travelled 6,754 kilometers. Her battery condition is great and we hope to track here for quite a bit longer.

Tracking update

2005-12-29T16:09:00.000-05:00

A few updates

2005-10-18T08:39:00.000-04:00

Hey Everybody! Thought I would give you a few updates on what we have been up to. The 2005 nesting season is now just about finished. We have been getting a new green turtle nest every week or so, but the leatherbacks and loggerheads are finished for the year. Both Kelly and I have been busy with other projects and working with our collected data on papers and presentations. Kelly is now at the National Marine Fisheries Service Atlantic Leatherback Expert Working Group meeting in the caribbean. When she gets back, maybe she will post about the work they accomplished.
There has been some exciting happenings at the Marinelife Center lately. Our new building is now being built! You can check it out here: Building updates Our boss and leader for the past few years has left us to pursue other interests and we now have a new executive director.
On a personal note, I have been taking a lot of pictures lately and have set up a new website to showcase a few of them. Check out www.turtleimages.org I hope to collect a large collection of images relating to sea turtle conservation and protection.
AND it looks like we may have another hurricane affecting Florida! The current projected path of Wilma is right over my house. It will be an interesting weekend!

Updates

2005-07-03T16:17:00.000-04:00

Hey Everybody! Sorry for the lack of updates lately. We have been adjusting to our new schedules and getting caught up on all the work negelected during leatherback season.

The leatherback nests are starting to hatch out now. This morning I had SIX nests hatch! In three days I will dig them up and see how well they did.

I watched this little guy crawl to the water just as the sun was rising this morning.

Found that transmitter...

2005-06-19T13:26:00.000-04:00

Wanted to give you an update on the transmitter that we heard from our office on Monday June 13th. We found it!

On 6-13-05 at around 11PM I turned our police scanner on here in my office. (being on the beach all night can be a bit boring and we like to know what is going on out there) The scanner has the argos frequency 401.650 MHz programmed in it, and we often use the scanner to verify that our transmitters are working before deployment. It has even been used to locate a turtle or two!

At around 11:30am Monday the scanner stopped on the frequency and I noticed that there was a transmitter sending a signal. I soon realized there was a transmitter in the area and that it was NOT one of ours. I had checked the two inactive ransmitters here in the office and quickly logged on to argos and saw our active PTT's were not in the area (we had two turtles being tracked near Cape Cod MA and Savannah GA) We had also deployed two Wildlife Computers PAT transmitters along with the folks from NMFS this season and I was fully convinced that I was listening to one of those that had popped off one of our leatherbacks prematurely and floated back to our beach. I rode around the beach for a while on the ATV with the scanner trying to locate the signal - It seemed to be coming from an area near my office which is only about 150 meters from the beach. When the sun came up I recruited Niki and her friend Gwen to wander the beach and adjacent dune looking for it. We probably spent two hours wandering around looking for something that I KNEW was in the area. It was really rather frustrating!

Tired, and defeated we had decided to give up and head to bed. I put a few "have you seen this.." signs up along the beach and was getting ready to go home. But at around 11am, the signal abruptly stopped. Confused, and trying to figure out what happened I had a wierd thought that maybe it was in the garbage and someone had just collected it. I ran down to the beach and watched a guy on a tractor driving north after emptying the trash!

Could I really be right?? Was the transmitter in the trash? Or was it attached to a bird and it had just flown off?? Sandy and I hopped in the car with the scanner and found the guy about a mile away loading his tractor on the truck. Scanner beeping once again, we decided to follow the guy in the car to his next stop a few miles away. We picked up Niki and headed south to Singer Island, where we found him in a county park about 10 miles to our south. When we pulled in to the park I had just said, "Oh well, no signal" when the scanner beeped once again! We were excited and bummed at the same time. It meant I needed to go into the back of the garbage truck which was not too pleasant. Actually it was really, really nasty!

After a few minutes of searching, we pulled out a clear plastic bag and I could see a PAT tag clearly! I yelled and pulled it out to find out it was what I was looking for, but it was not one of the units we deployed a few weeks ago. Excited, we called Wildlife Computers and relayed the info. After a few hours, I got a call from Dr. Richard Kraus at Texas A&M University in Galveston. The transmitter was his and had been deployed on a 125 pound Blue Marlin a few days earlier! The tranmsitter was attached to the fish and was designed to "popoff" after 180 days. This transmitter released prematurely for some reason and by getting the transmitter back Dr. Kraus may be able to determine what actually happened.

A PAT used on one of our nesting leatherback turtles (the same as the one found in the garbage)

It was a really neat set of circumstances that led to the finding of the tag! Very odd that it would wash up on the beach directly east of my office in range of our police scanner. If we had not recovered the transmitter, Dr. Kraus may have never known what happened to that Blue Marlin!

If you happen to come across a turtle with a tag, banded bird, or a scientific looking instrument on the beach, please take a look and do your best contact the researcher with the information on the tag.

Here are some links to read more about the Texas A&M projects.

http://www.tamug.edu/pelagic
http://www.tamug.edu/pelagic/tagging-data.htm

still here

2005-06-19T09:00:00.000-04:00

just to let everyone know, we haven't fallen off the face of the Earth! we've just been taking a few days to recuperate (and some of us are switching back over to daytime schedule). we had a celebratory evening on Wednesday - complete with champagne and a toast to a fantastic season. since then we've been catching up on paperwork, our other jobs, and sleep. there have only been a couple of leatherback nests in our area, as far as I know. soon we will be posting the season summary as well as updates on our little satellite turtle - as of this morning, she still appears to be transmitting off the coast of Charleston and has been hanging around there the past few days. we're going strong on our Name the Leatherback Contest - several more entries and donations have come in. Thanks to the Goodwins who contributed quite a list for us! we appreciate all the support. nests are beginning to hatch more frequently now, and we'll be able to check on the success of all of our leatherback girls. we should be posting regularly through the rest of the summer, so please do check back in....

cool breezes, flat water

2005-06-15T05:33:00.000-04:00

despite it being a pretty, cool breezy kind of night, we had no luck with finding leatherbacks. even the other species were fairly quiet out there. the water has really flattened out and sometimes we think although this is great for swimmers and going to the beach, it's not great for bringing turtles in to nest. I did see a few pairs of mating green turtles in the water and several nesting. I think we are pretty much finished up now for the season, we'll take a couple runs on the atv over the next few days but as far as full night surveys, we're done! we will however, still be posting on our Project Log as we want to keep everyone up to date on the naming contest (20 names entered so far) and also on the progress of our satellite turtle. plus from time to time we have people reporting turtles to us if they happen to come across them, so we may get a few more yet!

winding down

2005-06-14T05:27:00.000-04:00

yes, now it does seem to be winding down and we have just a few more nights of surveying. I think we are ready to stop! we've had a tremendous season so we are really happy with the results. we didn't have any leatherbacks last night, and the beach is still pretty beaten up from the storm last week, lots of scarps and gullies and potholes. but the sand is moving back onshore. now that we have small waves, the sandbar that was created out of the scarps last week, is slowly moving shoreward. it still makes for rather difficult driving though, because now there are 2 levels on the beach, the bottom one is soggy and waterlogged and the upper one is full of holes from green turtles, seaweed and nesting loggerheads. it could be just the time of the year that we are noticing these things though! Chris has an amazing story about that beeping he heard last night so check back in later - he'll be posting the story as soon as he has all the pertinent information....

and don't forget about our little turtle - we've got some names entered into the contest but we need lots more!

name the little leatherback!

quiet night

2005-06-13T10:53:00.000-04:00

It was a pretty quiet night out there with only one nesting leatherback. Navi was found just as she was digging her egg chamber near the Juno Beach fishing pier. There were also quite a few greens and loggerheads nesting between the giant scarps that had formed a few days ago.

Curiously, our scanner here in the office has been beeping with the familiar sounds of Argos satellite transmisons since late last night. The interesting thing about it, is that we do not have any turtles with transmitters in the area?! The signal could be coming from anything with an argos transmitter like a bird, manatee, green sea turtle or even an offshore buoy. We are going to investigate the signal a bit more and see if we can figure out where it is coming from. More later.

Upside down

2005-06-12T08:20:00.000-04:00

One turtle last night. I was riding the south route on ATV while Chris scoped from the road. No turtles on our first pass. It was tricky navigating the seaweed patches and cliffs, not to mention the sneaky rain squalls that came up from behind. On his second pass Chris was lucky to spot Lyra as she was making her way back to the water. He saw her from the pier and raced down to where she was. Lyra nested first in 2001, then again in 2003. My friend Jess joined me for the rest of the night. There were lots of loggerheads and green turtles nesting on the south end. They found little dips in the scarp where they were able to climb up the beach to nest. We did not see any leatherbacks, but we did see one interesting thing. On our final pass through MacArthur park we saw a really large white rock. Once we looked a bit closer we saw that it was a green turtle that had somehow flipped over! We hurried down to see if we could help and noticed that she was on top of a few small rocks (about 5 cm up from the sand). We heaved and pushed and finally pulled her over. I guess she had gotten up over the small rocks and a wave must have come and tipped her right over. She seemed a bit disoriented and exhausted when we righted her and it took her a while to get back into the water. She eventually did, and Jess and I felt lucky that we had found her. Jess had never seen an adult green close up, so she certainly got her chance!

Hurry up

2005-06-12T00:35:00.000-04:00

Hey guys, our little turtle is heading north! You still have a chance to pick a name for her.

Click here for more details.

tropical storm Arlene

2005-06-11T05:13:00.000-04:00

well the first tropical storm of the atlantic season put a crimp on our plans for tonight but we did manage to get out there. gusty winds, huge waves, and a dangerous beach made my passes on the ATV interesting! I was careful to ride far enough away from the beach scarps though, so it was fine. the wind was really something. going south, it blew directly into my face. we decided that we would work out of the Marinelife Center tonight (me, niki and chris) in case it got bad out. I rode the ATV while Chris and Niki used the old method (on the north section) of driving and night scoping. on my first pass I was just trying to pay attention so when I saw the big black turtle it startled me at first. it's really so rough and the scarps so large that I didn't expect to see anything. Scorpio had managed to find a smooth approach and was getting ready to lay eggs. I checked her tags, took a couple samples, marked her nest and moved on quickly - trying to minimize my time out on the beach. we all hung out in the office between passes and listened to the wind howl.

on my second pass, I was waved down by a couple of people at one of the public beach access points. they introduced themselves - Mike and Jimmy had just finished playing a gig with their band at the Waterway Cafe and had come out to have a look at the beach. Mike asked me if I'd seen any turtles and I said that it had been quiet so far. then he excitedly told Jimmy about a night a couple years ago when he'd been on the beach and had seen Sandy the turtle. I nearly fell off my bike! that was 2002 and Sandy was one of our satellite turtles that year. Turns out that Mike had been one of the people who watched us put her harness on and had witnessed the excitement we all felt that night. he said it was really something seeing the world renowned expert (Scott Eckert) and all of us working to get the turtle outfitted. Mike said he'd even followed Sandy's progress until her story ended sadly in NJ. It was so cool to hear about that night from someone else's perspective and it brought it all back for me. I related the story to Chris and Niki when I got back to the office, and we reminisced for a while. quite a coincidence running into Mike! that was all we had for the night and we are turning in early - it's storming away out there now as another rain band moves across south Florida from Tropical Storm Arlene (now nearing the panhandle).

contest day!

2005-06-10T06:52:00.000-04:00

OK! we are ready to announce our contest, and we hope that you will join in. the other night I gave several clues about our little turtle, that we'd spent a lot of time with her and we'd need a name because she's a new turtle. well, for those of you who remember Beatrice - the turtle we satellite tracked for 10 months, we've got a 'new' Bea! that is to say that we outfitted the little turtle with a harness and a transmitter which is programmed to last for up to 2 years! we hope that by looking at where she goes when she's finished nesting, she will tell us where these little leatherbacks are coming from. because the satellite tracking page is such a popular one, we thought it would be fun to have all of our readers participate in choosing the name for this turtle. her name and her tracking map will be displayed prominently in the Loggerhead Marinelife Center as well as on our website. If we choose the name you send in to us, we'll post your name as well (only if you wish). So we have a special page set up where you can Name our Leatherback! in order to submit a name, we are asking for a minimum $5 donation to support the program. the transmitter cost $2,000 and the satellite time will also be about that much, depending on how long it lasts. at the moment we are totally relying on donations to run the project so your help is very much needed and appreciated - none of it is used for salaries - we just work for kicks :). more details are on the contest page.

as for what happened last night on the beach, well Tropical Storm Arlene starting kicking up the surf yesterday and when we went out to start surveying, it was already 6-8 feet and carving out huge chunks of the beach. Return of the KIBS!! (if you remember Sandy's blog from earlier this year, those would be Killer Invisible Beach Scarps)! at least 4 feet high, these scarps now run the length of our beach, and all that sand that has been slowly building back up on the beach over the last couple months - GONE! my friends in the Geology Dept. at Duke would have loved to see the beach last night - incredible amounts of sediment transport! likely the sand has just moved offshore and with smaller waves it will come back in. very few turtles even attempted a run in and we only saw a few loggerheads and a couple of greens. none of our leatherback girls even tried...we'll see what this storm brings us, but it looks like it's headed north. looking forward to seeing the names you submit!