A Turtle watcher's Diary
2009 Season
Tuesday, July 14, 2009. Goodbye, Hello
and a Reservoir.
The last week of the project has been an emotional one. We have
gotten to the point in the project where the seasons changeover is
beginning. Every year it seems that there are two batches of
volunteers, ones that come for the first half and ones that come for
the second half and then the few hard-core, slightly insane ones
that stay for the entire season, a little over 3 months! Because of
this the last few days and the next week or so has seen the end of
some volunteers time here. We have so far had to say goodbye to
Anna, Ella, Boner and Kristine with another six leaving too soon for
comfort, myself included! Saying goodbye is always hard, it is
impossible not to form close friendships with people that you are
living in such close quarters with. But we try not to dwell on it as
the annual reunion in England should keep us all in touch!
However saying goodbye does also mean saying hello and with every
departing volunteer there is a new one to throw into the mix and get
to know. In the same amount of time we have welcomed returning
Heather and new girl Kim, who is completing a PhD so will be a
familiar face on the project for the next three years, as well as
returning Dave who is completing an undergrad project here and new
boy Josh, both of whom are from Falmouth. Despite being a returnee
Dave didn’t manage to see an adult laying last season as he arrived
in August and was too late so was pretty happy when after arriving
and going straight to the beach last night he was only waiting for a
short while before a female obliged and began to lay!
The week as always has been full of work with little time for play
for the volunteers but when offered an afternoon off as always we
jumped at the chance! Our friendly project leader talked about this
‘oasis’ of a reservoir in the hills before Five Finger Mountain. So
with ideas of a haven from the sun and excitement of swimming in
fresh water a group of volunteers headed off down the road for an
afternoon of adventure. I guess we should have known something was a
cropper when Robbo encouraged us all to go and take a break. I had
vague recollections of a similar trip last year where after hiking
for the best part of an afternoon a group of volunteers came across
a dried river bed, but after Robbo’s insistence that there had been
far more rain this winter off we went. With the hand drawn map with
only one path on it and mountains either side and instructions
clearly stating to ‘not take the left’ we walked in high
spirits….for the first ten minutes! After more than one junction and
votes at each one over whether or not we should in fact take the
left we found ourselves hiking in flip-flops up a mountain path,
surely not the way to a reservoir…a brief phone call and
instructions to just carry on encouraged us to continue we were
almost there, we had almost reached the oasis. Water and spirits
were beginning to dwindle, we needed to see the reservoir soon! At
the top of the hill we saw a dam wall, surely the reservoir was
beside the dam, spirits heightened and the sense of excitement
gathered once more. The first volunteers reached the top of the
hill, the edge of the reservoir and the rest of us were informed by
the wails that the reservoir was in fact once again dry as a bone!
The bottom was a dried cracked cake of mud and the 6ft elephant
grass growing all over it suggested the reservoir had not been full
for a while! What a wild goose chase! Our oasis dreams were
shattered had it not of been for morale and team spirit I’m not sure
we would have made it back to the Goatshed to thank Robbo for his
encouragement to visit this wonderful place! Not being the type of
people to dwell on it we headed back dripping with sweat; who needs
a swim anyway! Our excursion had been a team bonding exercise and
offered some prime photo opportunities for Sam and his tripod!
Anyone wishing to visit the reservoir can get a hand drawn map
themselves courtesy of Mr Robbo, who I’m still certain just wanted
peace at last at the Goatshed!
Thanks also to Pat and John for their lovely Chicken casserole, its
always exciting to get some food with real ingredients!
Emma.
Thursday, July 16, 2009.Last week out west.
An update from out west!
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| Ainsley and Tom Bogged Down |
With daytime temperatures so high we are hitting the beaches by 0600. There has been a sudden drop in the number of activities this week, particularly green activity. There is a total of 88 nests, 57 of which are Logger and 31 Green. We are also eagerly awaiting the hatching of our first nest early next week. A week of high winds and large seas has seen message beach gouged out well past the high water mark washing out one nest and soaking several others. Dogs have also been a big problem in the last couple of weeks, determinedly digging round the edges of the wire netting or beating us to the nests in the morning. Its heartbreaking to find piles of empty egg shells scattered round a dug out nest.
While poking for an egg chamber in a green nest on Lost, Ainslie,
Kate and Becca unearthed three unfound nests from last season, all
under the one new cover up. What are the chances of that! The
majority of eggs had hatched from each nest and investigation of the
ones that hadn’t revealed very smelly mush.
Last week seemed to be a week of dramas involving either 4 wheels or
water! The Rav is still on holiday in the Lapta garage with parts
now ordered from Japan. Its replacement, thanks to Keco, has been
luxury, a ‘real’ 4x4, with high and low range and a large deck for
carrying cages, shovels and buckets and making travelling on the
rocky and sandy tracks much more pleasant. However it too had a
minor hiccup with the chassis splitting and the whole back end of the
truck sitting on the back wheels!
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| New Friends in the West |
So it was back to the garage for some serious super gluing and welding. This gave Ainslie, Tom and Gill an unexpected 3 days off back at the Goat Shed. When it was apparent that this 4x4 wasn’t going to be ready until ‘yarin’, it was decided to take the new ute back out west and to do the best we could with 2WD. Hmmm, bad idea. First day; stuck in 3 inches of sand with no way of making progress without churning great holes. So with darkness fast approaching and all Tom and Ainslie’s ingenuity proving fruitless and Gill worrying about the possibility of a night at the beach, we called in the Tepebashi rescue service ie Tony Hutchinson who came and collected us, taking us home to Guzelyurt and then the next day returning to pull the truck out. Thank you Tony! So with a serious lesson in 2WD capabilities, Lost now had to be covered by walking from West 1. Ainslie volunteered for this task and with the walk and 4 green nests to uncover, Gill and Tom had 4 hours to sunbathe, read and in Tom’s case hunt lizards. I’m glad to say that that only had to happen once and we now have Keco’s car back, all nicely welded back together again.
On top of all this the water works in the house presented a few
challenges… kitchen sink blocked up completely, water leaked through
the kitchen ceiling, toilet cistern and pipes in bathroom wall also
leaking and at any given time scalding hot or cold water can come
out of either tap! The plumber came, poked and prodded and climbed
on the roof and shook his head in despair and proclaimed ‘chok
problem’ (many problems) before leaving us to it!
Knowing what it is like to be bogged in dry sand in a 2WD, Ainslie
went to the rescue of Ibrahim and Erdogan, a couple of fisherman who
were in the same predicament. Ever so grateful and relieved, they
insisted on cooking us lunch. What a wonderful experience. Out came
the bbq, the table and chairs, the lamb chops and chicken, the fresh
fruit and veges from their garden and most importantly an entire
bottle of whiskey! A realy nice way to spend an afternoon out west –
just one of the reasons that west is best!
Ainslie x
Saturday, July 18, 2009.Hatchlings!!!!!!
Firstly we need to say a great big thank you to the expats for
attending night watches in the past couple of weeks, making
donations and organizing and attending fundraising events. The next
one coming up is ‘The Weakest Link’ to be held on Saturday 25th July
at the Mountain View Hotel in Karaoglanoglu. The event includes
local celebrities having a go as well as the opportunity to play
yourself or nominate a friend, there is also a buffet! It promises
to be a great evening out! Tickets are only 20TL and can be reserved
at the Hotel itself, as well as from the SPOT stall at Lambousa
Market and from Tricia on 05338469563. This events are such a vital
and greatly appreciated side of our fund raising as I am sure you
are all well aware that the project runs predominantly thanks to the
donations from fundraisers and the general public.
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| One of the First Hatchlings |
So this week has been another eventful one at Alagadi, although those at the Goatshed working night shifts are still keenly awaiting their first hatchlings. On North we have been treated to not only one hatched nest but three and have already seen Green and Loggerhead hatchlings! Yesterday, Friday north get pretty exciting! It was Becca’s last day and she decided that coming off night work she would head straight north with myself and Tom, Sam also decided to tag along being worried about missing out on any fun!
The morning
went as normally as usual until all the excitement began at Tatlisu
where we spotted the first hatchling tracks of the year! Even after
three seasons Becca was as excited as ever. According to protocol we
excavated the nest to retrieve any stragglers that may be too close
to the surface and would get too hot during the day. We take these
back to Alagadi to weigh and measure and release the following night
under the cover of darkness. We also count the egg fragments to see
how many hatchlings have hopefully made it to the sea and open any
unhatched eggs to see what the problem may have been. With the
hatchlings in a pile of damp sand in a bucket we headed onwards…only
for disaster to strike! Myself and Becca were left at Esentepe to
walk the beaches whilst the boys went for fuel, only an hour later
when they hadn’t returned from a ten minute journey we were
beginning to worry, how could they possibly have gotten lost. With a
right puss on we began to walk towards Esentepe village, 20 minutes
down the road we came across Tom walking towards us…problem, Tofas
was finished for the time being anyway. Sam was hitching back to
wake Robbo and we were left with a broken car and a bucket of
hatchlings….interesting hitching attire! Fortunately a kind man in a
very smart clean Mercedes picked us up and we rushed back to Alagadi
at top speed!
The following day with a fixed Tofas we headed north again only to
experience every single activity possible, we had FCU’s, FCA’s, both
logger and green nests, a relocation and both species of hatchlings!
Busy busy!
This week a few volunteers managed to get some chill out time to
climb Besparmak…not so much relaxing as we’d imagined! Two and half
hours after leaving Alagadi we reached the restaurant the other
side, it was a great walk. But I think I speak for everyone when I
say we got the biggest sweats on in the world!! Was a great
achievement though!
This page is a mirror of a blog written by volunteers of the Marine Turtle Research group. Information about the MTRG can be found here.
For more information about the turtles of North Cyprus, their nesting and hatching, follow the links.