1st Dec’19 – Monitoring turtles

By dis2w03/12/2019

If the sun is up then so am I.

Gary, the American chap, who lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico is leaving today and I’ll miss him.

As well as being almost the same generation as me, he is the only ‘English’ speaking volunteer in camp. We got on well and developed a little bond because of our similarities.

He is catching the bus at 5am to the next little village, Punta del Diablo, just 30 minutes along the road where he has rented a house until February to escape the US winter. Although we all said our goodbyes last night, I was lying awake and heard him shuffling around outside so I decided to get up and say my last farewell as he headed out of camp towards the bus stop. Well that was another one gone.

Cheeko, the now resident house dog was caught taking a nap on our couch and she knew it. Her tail wagged in a rather sheepish way and she never lifter her head. I left her to enjoy the comforts of the soft furnishings 🤣

Later that morning Alejandro took Flor (his wife) into Montevideo to catch the bus back to Buenos Aires. She was returning home until the end of December. She was a biologist and deeply involved in the conservation of sea turtles and took responsibility for treating the turtles at Karumbe. She taught me everything I knew about treating sea turtle (and Segway ). I loved her enthusiasm. I was so sorry to see her go. We swapped emails and promised to keep in touch. I was now left in charge of the patients with no advisory back up and it was a scary responsibility but I have done it so far and I’m sure I can continue to do it.

I don’t know why I say “it was a busy morning” it’s always a busy morning. The patients need the same attention repeated every day. There was nothing boring about this project. Every day I hoped to see and improvement – any slight improvement was a right step in the road to recovery.

Segway, what can I say about this wee fighter, he was continuing to improve daily. This morning I offered him fresh fish found in the beach and he almost inhaled it. It was a huge hurdle, an enormous leap towards his road to freedom. He can’t yet quite support his body weight or flex his wings but he was supporting his head – every small step!

He received his antitoxin injections into his pectoral muscles to help fight the effects of the botulism.

Sandra and I were on Turtle watch in the canal at 7pm – 8pm where we count the number of turtles leaving the ocean to rid their shells and skin of molluscs.

After leaving the beach as hatchlings, the Green turtles stay out in the deep ocean for approximately 8 years where they maintain a carnivorous life style. These years are know as the ‘lost years’. When they leave the deep ocean and return to the shallows, they are transitioning from carnivores into vegetarians and eat the kelp close to shore but they can occasionally eat fish etc and it is thought they supplement their diet with fish from the canal. They never nest on these beaches, they are only passing through.

Anyway, Sandra and I took some details from the environment before starting the survey: sea and canal temperature, % of clouds, visibility and wind direction then stood for an hour and only saw 3 heads pop up from below.

Unfortunately some of the local arrived with enormous nets and blocked the canal. They were using it to catch fish but unfortunately they also trap and catch the turtles. It is actually illegal for them to carry out this type of fishing and Sandra approached them in a sensitive manner to remind them. They did initially remove their nets but to be honest I wasn’t hopeful that they wouldn’t continue once we left.

The sunset was beautiful, it threw reflections on the beach.