The time in North Cyprus is

A Turtle Watcher's Diary

2009 Season

23rd May 2009

I arrived in Cyprus on Monday 18th May. I wanted to come to Cyprus early before the volunteers arrive to make preparations in the Goat Shed, but also to enjoy some peace and quiet in this lovely spot at Alagadi. The Goat Shed garden had gone to ruin with weeds and grass everywhere, but on further inspection I was pleased to see remnants of plants that we put in last season. I was particularly glad to see a tell tale stump emerging from the grass, a Frangipani, which I received for my birthday last year and after some watering a few leaves are now beginning to show! The interior of the Goat Shed was looking good, with none of the vermin that we saw last season thanks to a thorough scrub down by the team on leaving last October. Keco who owns the building had been keeping checks and had also kindly trimmed some of the shrubs that were getting out of hand. A few dead lizards lurking in the water tank have now been fished out so we have running water and electricity, although all of the light bulbs needed replacing. Due to problems with damp I have been stripping and sealing the concrete walls ready for painting, but I haven’t started with paint yet. I’m going to leave some of the big jobs for when volunteers arrive.

I picked up the car Tofas and checked the north coast beaches between Alagadi and Kaplica yesterday and found no activities. A bit early yet. However this morning I found two U-turns on Alagadi 1. Extremely likely that they were from the same female and maybe she will nest over the next few days. So this marks the start of the season and with a green activity so early I am keeping my fingers and toes crossed that we will see another big year for greens as was the case last season. Although obviously it would be nice to see more loggerheads too.

The Tofas seems ok but I doubt she will last the season and she has already had one costly visit to the garage. So we are looking to purchase a new car in the very near future. Many thanks to Friends of SPOT (Society for Protection Of Turtles) for their fund raising work which has produced the funding, to enable us to purchase this essential new vehicle. And a huge thank you to the many visitors who took part in night watches and excavations.

With 3G Internet now available we have gone online. This should facilitate a much better communication system between Alagadi and the public to keep people informed on turtle activities and events. I decided to set up this blog so that there is a central point of information, to keep people informed. And also for friends and relatives of all of the volunteers.

The first volunteers arrive on Tuesday 26th May and by the first week of June we will be 10 strong. I imagine we will start night work in the first or second week of June and will be encouraging visitors to join us on night watch excursions from the middle of the month. As always the timings are turtle dependant so keep an eye on the blog to see what is going on. Do come down to the information centre any time for a cup of tea and a chat. At the moment there is even a slice of fruit cake that my mother packed me off with but you will have to get in quick. As always, bookings for night watch need to be made in person from the Alagadi info centre. Night watch is free but we do encourage donations.

24th May 2009

I checked Alagadi this morning and found a green activity on Alagadi 2. Initially I was certain that this was a nest, but on further inspection and after probing the sand with a stick for half an hour and working up a blister, I found no eggs so recorded this as an attempt. The same female as the previous night last night on A1 I am certain as all of the tracks I measured were between 73 and 75cm. This is the span between the marks left by the hind flippers as the turtle pushes itself along the sand. Off to the South (Greek) side of the island today to see a friend who works down there as a teacher. Making the most of my free time before things get busy.

25th May 2009

It's been a busy morning. The attempted nest on Alagadi from the day before turned out to be an actual nest. I was able to locate it more easily with the self guiding pokey stick that I fashioned. So that is all caged up on Alagadi 2 now. Officially the first green nest of the season and on the night of 23rd May this is very early, greens normally arriving later than loggerheads. Tofas and I also checked the beaches between Alagadi and Kaplica and found two loggerhead nests at Tatlisu. One of these was too close to the sea and would have been washed away, so I excavated it and moved the nest further up the beach, being careful to recreate the nest to the same dimensions as the original. 130 eggs in this nest, which is a huge number for a loggerhead. Tofas was happy. A tractor had been across Tatlisu beach and its tyre tracks narrowly missed the egg chamber of one of the loggerhead nests. With a green nest so early on and with the loggerheads really getting off to a good start, it looks as though we may be in for a busy season and that makes me happy. But I still don’t want to jump to conclusions.

I have brought a kayak and am now off for a paddle around the coast hoping to spot some mating turtles. Project Coordinators Brendan Godley and Annette Broderick are arriving tonight for a week so I’m looking forward to catching up with them and their two children. Ainslie the first volunteer arrives tomorrow night. She is bringing my camera so we will be able to illustrate these blog posts from Tuesday.

26th May 2009

A loggerhead U-turn on Alagadi 2 this morning but no more nests. Tonight I pick up our first volunteer Ainslie Wilson from the airport and tomorrow morning we will check the North Coast beaches again and then get stuck in painting and preparing the visitors centre. Brendan and Annette arrived last night and I caught up with them this morning for breakfast at St Kathleen's restaurant. They have brought with them lots of equipment including 7 satellite transmitters that we will be deploying on green turtles later in the season.

27th May 2009

No activities on the North coast from Alagadi to Kaplica today. No big surprise as it is early days.

The Goat Shed

Redecoration

Ainslie and I took our time and returned via Kantara Castle which Ainslie found amazing as an avid historian and what a panoramic view on such a clear day the East coast, Karpas and the Kyrenia mountains, even the outline of the Turkish coast to the north.

An impressive first day despite the disappointing lack of turtle activity.

 We returned to the goat shed for lunch and got cracking with some jobs. Ainsie is now covered in white paint but pleasingly so is the interior of the kitchen. I have been raking up all of the overgrown weeds from around the garden. Hot work now that the cool wind that we saw this morning has died off.

Tonight we will retrieve newbie Tom Haley from the airport and together with Dr Wayne Fuller who used to do my job, but is now settled on the island, the four of us hope to explore the west coast in search of nests. We will be taking red paint with us with which to touch up annual marker posts that we use to measure by triangulation the location of each turtle activity. Additionally this season all nests will be marked by GPS. So fingers crossed that we are busy.

28th May 2009

An early rise this morning and by 9.00 the four of us were in Akdeniz village on the West coast. Our 4x4 vehicle having survived the winter seemed in good order. Wayne took the helm and steered us North of Akdeniz through drifting sand and over bare rock to some of the most remote beaches on the island, fondly known to us as Lost, Message in a Bottle, West 1 and West 2.

Excavating a Nest from 2008

We painted the marker posts and checked for activities but found none. We did however find a nest that had not been excavated during the previous season and analysed its success, which was good training for the newbies. A green nest from which 38 eggs had hatched (38 empty fragments counted) at the remaining 44 had not, but after almost a year rotting in the sand, reasons for the failure of these were impossible to distinguish. Ainslie took note of the routes to take and routes to be avoided between beaches, as it is likely that she will head up the base in Guzelyurt this season. We only had to get out and push on one occasion. After sarnies in Akdeniz and a brief catch up with resident and friend of the project Mr Mustafa we continued to the Monster beach south of Akdeniz. You can see why they called it Monster when Glasgow University Turtle Conservation Expedition (GUTCHE) first surveyed this beach in 1992. It is a big and ugly beach. But despite this our loggerheads do frequently dig through its stony surface to lay their eggs in the sand below. We saw 2 loggerhead U-turns and one attempt, a good attempt with three body pits. So surely a nest will await us when we return in a few days time and hopefully the beaches North of Akdeniz will also be showing signs of life. Relocating and marking all of the marker posts along this beach was quite a challenge. We found a number of deceased turtles of various maturity stages, not uncommon at the begining of the season. We also made note of the new beach bar that has appeared at the end of the track from Akdeniz.

Pictures to follow tomorrow as Ainslie had the camera and is now catching some well earned Zs. Tomorrow we will stay close to home, just checking Alagadi and focusing work on the Goatshed garden, info centre, sleeping house and beach. Tom having arrived at midnight last night and being woken up to slave away in the sun all day, is also rather pooped.

Brendan, Annette and their children Ellie and David kindly checked Alagadi and the North coast to Kaplica for us this am and found two loggerhead nests on Alagadi. So that's 4 loggerhead and 1 green nest on the North coast now.

29th May 2009

Rubbish to be cleared at Alagadi

This morning we checked Alagadi and discovered two loggerhead nests and two nesting attempts. Annette, Brendan and the children measured and caged these up whilst answering questions from early morning sunbathers. Tom and I put marker posts in place along the whole of Alagadi 1 and 2 and painted these with their specific sequential numbers, whilst Ainslie stayed home at the Goatshed and worked on the visitors centre. We all met for lunch at the Alagadi beach bar and then continued work at the Goatshed in the afternoon. By this point the sun was pretty intense. We really went to work with the strimmer and cleared wheelbarrow full after wheelbarrow full of grass and weeds. Returnee volunteer Rebecca Plant, who’s father John lives on the Island in Alsancak arrived and leant a hand. After spending some time with family Becca will be back in Alagadi throughout June (if she wants to live to see July she will be!). Sertac Guven our Cypriot volunteer, who works in Lefkosa but takes free time to help on the project, was also in action. Quite a hive of activity then and when we called it a day around seven things were really beginning to take shape. The info centre is up and running so we are now encouraging people to drop by.

During our industrious afternoon friend of the project Penny Butcher dropped by with a delicious banana cake for which she was famous last season. The cake may survive for 24 hrs at the moment with just the three of us, but traditionally the last crumb is gone within the time it takes to boil the kettle! We enjoyed a few slices with a cup of tea after dinner as the sun set on another great day.

Tomorrow we aim to check the North Coast to Kaplica and will be collecting litter on Alagadi Beach from nine as conditions are currently quite discusting in certain areas where the upkeep of the beach has not been maintained (see picture with the Broderick/Godley family at Alagadi 2 this morning). More logistics to set up in Alagadi and preparations for night work, which we want to get going as soon as possible. With the volume of loggerheads that we are currently seeing, it would be better to know whether these individuals are tagged and to get volunteer training underway. We collect our next volunteer San Joannou at Ercan tomorrow night.

30th May 2009

Yet another hot day in paradise! And another early morning wake up thanks to the neighbouring rooster and donkey plus the resident swallows, who have all undertaken the joint responsibility of making sure everyone is up at the crack of dawn.

Relocating a Nest Laid too close to the Water's Edge

Rebecca, Tom and I headed to the north beaches this morning while Robbo stayed behind to cover the local ones. Tatlisu beach provided the first tracks clearly visible from quite a distance. The tracks tell us what kind of turtle has been ashore during the night. The Green Turtles flippers leave a symmetrical pattern because she ploughs through the sand with both front limbs at the same time. The Loggerhead places one flipper in front of the other and therefore leaves an asymmetrical track. This track we discovered was made by a Green and after some fairly prolonged prodding, Rebecca located the egg chamber and we were able to dig down to find the eggs.

Turtle Eggs

Onwards north, the next activity was at Kantara, a tiny little beach that doesn't often see much action. However, last night, a Loggerhead came ashore and did her thing. The problem is though, the whole beach is within the high tide range so the nest needed to be relocated to another safer site. Having taken nest measurements, we dug up 88 pin pong ball sized eggs and carefuly placed them in the chilly bin ( forgot the bucket - must get more organised!)along with the mucus covered sand from around the eggs.

Further along the coast at Kaplica the nest was recreated and the eggs safely reburied. Back on Alagadi, Robbo also had a Loggerhead nest. With more volunteers due to arrive in the next day or two, I spent the afternoon cleaning the 'Sleepy House', getting rid of piles of swallow poo (some poor sod is going to have to sleep under that nest!), inches of accumulated dust, a mouse, 2 geckoes and numerous rather large spiders. The Sleepy House is a couple of hundred metres down the track away from the Goat shed. Once night shift starts this will provide a cool quiet place for those who have patrolled the beach to catch some zzzzz's. While Tom repainted the ornate front gates, Robbo and I returned to the beach with Keco's ute to deal with the 70 odd bags of beach rubbish collected yesterday.

The Goat Shed and gardens look fantastic now and much more inviting for visitors. The donkeys and goats have been most appreciative of the garden rubbish too. I go to bed each night now knowing that not far from where I lie, under the protective cover of darkness, an ancient ritual will be taking place. How very cool is that!

31st May 2009

No turtle activity yesterday. We had a busy day in Alagadi cleaning and tidying the goatshed and making finishing touches. Many visitors are now showing up for information. We are off to the West Coast today to check once again for activities, myself, Ainslie and newbie Sam. Tom will be around all with information for visitors. More later.

Mr Mustafa

Volunteer number three, Sam, arrived late last night, bringing the turtle brigade total to 4. And tonight as I write this another 5 are arriving so the peace and quiet of the goat shed will be a thing of the past. An increase in numbers will mean that night training can start in preparation for taking visitors out.

Turtle tracks at West 1 Beach

An early morning walk today along Alagadi revealed one new Logger nest, quite close to the water line. Tom was left at home today with a very long list of jobs and to host to any visitors that popped in, while Robbo, Sam and I headed to the beaches on the West. This was the first time that we had been left to drive and navigate the dune tracks on our own and I discovered that my note taking from the other day left out a lot of vital information! Needless to say there were several wrong turnings, quite a lot of backtracking and more than one occasion where the shovel was required to dig the Rav out of the sand! It was all good fun, so much so that it was quite hard to get Robbo out from behind the wheel.

West 2 and Monster both had Green activity but all were FCA (false crawl attempt). Information can still be gathered from these including track width and position of the body pits (nesting attempts) in relation to the high water mark and vegetation line. There was also a lot of Logger activity along Monster, all FCA or U-turns, until finally at the very end of Monster (it’s a very long beach!) we found a Logger nest – the first nest on the West.

At the end of the day, weary and sunburnt in Akdeniz village, we were invited by Mr Mustafa into the cool shade of his yard for a drink. He always gives us a big wave and calls out a greeting as we drive through Aldeniz so it was nice to spend a little time with him.

1st June 2009

We're Anna and Libby, two new volunteers for the project.

Getting Organised for the Season

Today was an early start for us (6 o’clock) as we were checking the beaches on the North Coast for any activity. We found some false crawl attempts and two green turtle nests. Becca explained to us the differences between the loggerhead and green turtle tracks and also how to screen the nests from predators. The nests were given different names to identify them. After many hours of checking the beaches, we were hot, thirsty, sweating and tired so we decided to have an ice cream at a convenient beach bar. It was very satisfying!!! Then there was a long drive back to the base.

Celli, Katy, Sam, Ainslie and Penny were in charge of looking after visitors.

One of the daily jobs around the Goat Shed is to take the food scrap bucket and feed the goats. This task was given to Sam and Penny who came back rather swiftly minus the bin! Apparently the goats were terrifying and they made a hasty retreat. Sam was so scared he locked the gates with Penny still inside!

Our afternoon was spent relaxing, at the beach with the exception of Ainslie who manned the visitor centre and Robbo who was doing some hard haggling on a much needed new car.

Before we start doing night patrols of the beach, we all need to know what is involved so Robbo showed us how to spot, tag and monitor turtle behaviour through the night. Now, we are all off down to the beach for our first night of no sleep and hopefully a turtle or two!!

3rd June 2009

The last 24 hours of the turtle project have been exhausting, thrilling and extremely hot! After dinner last night we all traipsed down to the beach loaded with bottles of water, warm jumpers and tonnes of turtle equipment. After 2 minutes on the beach Becca spotted our first turtle. Down on bended knee, we started to crawl commando style towards it. On closer inspection however it turned out to be nothing but a large tyre. This was to be the theme of the evening. Three bushes, 4 piles of rocks and one sand castle later we had still not found and actual turtle. The mood on the beach however was hopeful. Groups were sent off to walk the beach to check for sitings and tracks and we would congregate at the midpoint every half an hour or so for gossips and games. Our numbers slowly diminished as volunteers needed to be picked up from the airport and those that had been up since 5 the previous evening succumbed to tiredness.

Eventually it was 4:45am and we were on our last beach walk, heading for home and our beds. Penny and Robbo went over to Iki (the second beach) for one final check and we received a radio call simply stating. ‘Turtle! Run!’ Sam, Kate, James and I clambered over rocks, ran down paths and sprinted to the site.

There she was. The first turtle of the season, named Steve. A fantastic loggerhead just laying her eggs. She was absolutely beautiful and extremely focused on what she was doing. She didn’t seem to mind a bit when we tagged her and measured her to collect data. Finally at about 6am we watched her heave her way back in to the sea at sun rise. Possibly one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. So we’ve marked her nest and now we just keep our fingers crossed that everything goes well until hatching.

We finally hit the bed, tired but exhilarated, at 6:30 and slept until mid day today. Needless to say I’m writing this to you while pretty spaced out and strangely disorientated. Am looking forward to a good night sleep and, of course another early morning.

To all those that put in hard work last night but missed Steve, I hope you have better luck this evening.

4th June 2009

Last night was our second night of turtle watch. We all headed down in a staggered fashion to the beach at approx. 8.30. Ainslie, Woody and Sam took Icky and the rest of us did Alagadi 1.

Protecting the Nest

We had action pretty early on in the evening with a radio of possible activity on Icky, which turned out to be a Green. Robbo had to make a mad dash for it to the other end of the beach as it was very close to last nights loggerhead (I think they're making it as difficult as possible for us, the sneaky things!). It was first recorded mid-way through its body pit. After demonstration by Robbo, Sam got to tag both the pit (electronic) and flipper (metal ring).

All occupants of the beach minus James got to view the Green which was a great result and helped us with track identification for future reference. No further activity was seen and after an exhausting night Tom and I did the last walk back at dawn.

Sam Catching Flies

We saw many dog tracks which shows the ever present threat of predation on the eggs.

Sam summed up our lack of sleep pretty well with his fly catching mouth! Today, a new day, saw Becca, Anna, Adrian and Penny going west to look for nests. They found lots of activity and three loggerhead nests. Back at base Celli was in charge of tourist duty so was up nice and early. She along with Ainslie, Libby and a few others were privileged enough to find a chameleon in the garden.

The Chameleon From the Garden

We all slept in after our night on the beach and rose around mid-day. Jobs this afternoon revolved around making posters for advertisements within the local beach bars and town. Celli, Libby and I did this while wailing along to various tunes on the ipod and ballet dancing (not a pretty site!). Sam had the job of making a door for the shower so that more than one person can have a shower at once. We can now shower al fresco two at a time and chat as we do it (going to take some getting used to!).

Tom was demolition man and fixed one of the main gates which prevents access to the beach during night hours. I cooked dinner which comprised of a chuck together of haloumi, potato chips and salad as the fridge was empty. Ainslie was having a nap so we saved her a plate full. Sam managed to get it into his head that it was waste and ended up throwing it in the compost bin!! We managed to scrape together something which vaguely resembled a meal for her so she didn't go hungry! Another day, another night duty- the group have just gone out to start for the evening, I've got the night off as I'm on tourist duty tomorrow so need to be awake and sharp to be able to get the well needed donations required to keep this project afloat!

5th June 2009

Another day at the big turtle house, some activity was spotted last night on Alagadi 1.

Preparing Kit Bags

 Two loggerheads were spotted. The first, by a guest from a project on the south side early on in the night, and the second by Sam I am at around midnight. Icky had a FCU from a green turtle, which was franticly measured up by Tom and Celli. Libby lost her flipper and pit tag virginity last night by pit tagging the 1st loggerhead and flipper tagging the second. Becca got to show off her amazing stealth skills on a turtle vanishing the embarrassment of stealthing a tyre a few nights earlier. This was all the action for the night turtle-wise, but people on Alagadi 1 decided to munch some biscuits. The love was not spread to icky, so we went hungry (sob). A long, and exhausting night, was finished off by Tom and Sam, with Sam feeling exceptionally tired from a night of sit ups and push ups for a bet with Celli.

Rob Being Interviewed

A fresh, awake Kate, opened information centre and used her talent of talking forever, to entice customers to buy things and to donate money to a worthy cause. Becca, Penny, Ana and Adrian went to the north coast and had to relocate a nest from Kantara. Also, the tragic news that Tom’s baby, “retrobob” the turtle nest, had been lost to the high seas the night before rocked the camp. We all have our fingers crossed that the eggs are still OK, just MIA.

After the tragic news was broken, and tears had been shed, we all got about to doing some work. Becca and Tom painted the barrier, the fans had the plugs mysteriously fitted by an unknown volunteer (Although we suspect Ainslie did it). Any further information on this mystery would be gratefully appreciated. Robbo arrived back from town bringing presents of food and t-shirts and was followed by a surprise visit from the ice cream man with all his crazy but nice flavours.

Robbo arranged a meeting at around 2 o’clock to instruct us all the ways of the kit bags. During the meeting Robbo was interviewed by the local media and explained all our hard work and asked for everyone to help keep the beaches clean. Kate and Penny were also asked for a quick statement.

6th June 2009

How could this day get any better? Well it did by two magicians in the kitchen who produced an amazing meal fit for a king. Ana did arrive on the scene to help rescue these two chefs from their late service. The meal went down well and the team have now left to go off on another adventure searching for turtles.
Another great night on the beach last night with lots of activity early in the evening to keep motivation high. The first turtle of the evening, on Alagadi 1, was a large green. She measured in at a whacking 104cm (length of carapace and dug two body pits before digging the egg chamber. This was followed closely by two Loggerheads, on Alagadi 1 and Alagadi 2 respectively. There were also a couple of u-turns as well just to keep us on our toes. Just before dawn, on Alagai 2 a Loggerhead came ashore and completely wasted everybody's time by digging several body pits and egg chambers before disappearing off into the sea again.

Kelly and a Green Turtle

We have a many wonderful people locally who are helping the turtle project in many ways. One such person is Penny, who lives in Alagadi and provides us with the most wonderful cakes every few days. Yesterdays banana cake was saved until the wee small hours of the morning and devoured on the beach. Thank you Penny!

Sleep deprivation is beginning to take it's toll and most people today failed to put in an appearance much before mid afternoon! The usual insomniacs however, Ainslie, Robbo were up early; Ainslie flooding the kitchen with the washing machine and Robbo test driving the new ute and Tom and Libby manning the visitor centre.

Several blog readers have asked for a little background information of the project and also a little about more about a typical day. Since 1992 over students from British universities have taken part in the annual monitoring and conservation of marine turtles in Northern Cyprus. Work is carried out at the request and in conjunction with members of the local Society for the Protection of Turtles and the local Department of Environmental Protection. You can get more detailed information from www.seaturtle.org/

The Most Frequented Beaches

Our work involves night time beach patrols at Alagadi Beach and day time patrols on few beaches on the North and West coasts as well. Those people on night patrol start at 2030 and are on the beach until 0500. Every 10 minutes, groups of 2-3 people patrol the beach and upon encountering a nesting female record her activity / tags measurements etc. This can only be done once she is laying eggs as any noise or light before that stage could frighten her away. Some of the work this year will involve attaching and possibly retrieving satellite transmitters to nesting females to record their inter-nesting behaviour. Communication between the groups of the beach is by coded (sometimes so coded that the meaning is entirely lost)flashing of torches and VHF Radio.

Day work during the nesting period involves monitoring of beaches to record nesting activities, protecting nests from predation using wire screeds and relocating nests laid too close to the sea to safer sites.

16th June 2009

A busy few weeks for me. I was glad to have the workforce needed to enable us to begin night work at an early stage and hence already we have a good list of individual turtles that have visited Alagadi to lay their first clutch. 36 nests now. Not to mention a male turtle carrying a satellite transmitter who after a week at sea has now reached Turkey and begun to traverse the coast towards Mersin, probably patrolling for females and trying to sew his seeds a far as possible. First of it’s kind in the Med actually!

The Route Taken by the Male Turtle

It is now getting to that stage where the first nesters having laid a fortnight ago, will be returning to lay their second clutch of the season, whilst new females continue to arrive to lay their first. Last night we saw 5 nests, 4 green turtles and 1 loggerhead. At around 2am a storm whipped up and we were blasted by sand and a number of nests were washed over by high seas. At half five we waved off the last of the females in broad daylight as she was engulfed in waves. Quite surreal and deserving of a celebratory drink before bed. There is now no question that the season is going to be extremely productive for both species. I remember the dreaded season of 2005 when we only had 40 nests on Alagadi, night after night of no activity and boredom. I expect at least 100 this year.

Now that the volunteers are trained up and with experienced remigrant volunteers arriving from last season, who’s return was funded by the Erwin Warth Foundation, the volunteers are coordinating themselves on the beach well and I am able to snatch an hour or two to myself in the goat shed, on call and listening out on the VHF radio. I am really pleased with the team, all of them get on very well and work together, full of initiative and enthusiasm. With no new arrivals for a few weeks now I expect that we will become a very tight group.

We have been tackling the litter problem on Alagadi beaches. Firstly on Sunday afternoons we are patrolling the beaches handing out black bags to local family groups to take their litter to the car parks. Secondly, during the week we are emptying the bins in all of the car parks and loading all of the rubbish to the beach bar where Gokmen, the beach bar manager, then ferries it up to the Beledeya in Esentepe. We hope that the Beledeya will take responsibility for at least emptying the bins in the near future. We have also organised beach cleans and special thanks go out to Marylin and friends, who came down from Catalkoy on Monday to help out on Alagadi 2.

On Sunday the West Coast team returned and stayed over and volunteer James Johnston and his two friends Woody and Ollie at James’s parents house in Esentepe hosted a reunion pool party. Sorry James if your parents were not supposed to find out, but apparently the house was cleaner when we left than when we arrived. James has been house sitting for a few weeks whilst diving by day and turtling by night at Alagadi, not leaving much time for house work. Woody and Ollie disclosed that James had been tidying all morning in anticipation of our arrival! A big thanks to James for putting on a great spread, we all had a well-deserved afternoon off and a fantastic time.

I took an hour off this afternoon and launched my kayak on Alagadi. In the middle of bay 3 I noticed a turtle cross underneath me. It crossed my path a few times moving quite quickly beneath me, almost inquisitively, and I was able to identify it as a male green turtle. It emerged to breath beside me and that was the last I saw of him. Brilliant!

18th June 2009

Night watch continues and is getting very very very busy! Conditions are also made diffcicult with the weather conditions being as harsh as they are. While the weather still remains scorching hot during the day, driving all of us bar boner into the shade (she likes to bake in the sun in all temps!), the nights are very windy and on occasion a bit chilly. While some are very prepared for this- ie Jimbob with his full outfit of thermals and long johns! others such as me who stupidly brought very little warm clothes are suffering a little! The wind has made measuring post marks and keeping track of equipment while being pelted in the eyes by a full blown sand storm slightly challenging! But we persist and are constantly being rewarded by a good show of turtles each night.

A Turtle Returns to Stormy Seas

My body clock is finally starting to get into the rhythm and many are now feeling upon returning from night duty up for a little tipple.....or one tippple to many causing a funny and nasty slight for the rest of us the next morning when they finally arise, namely Celli and Gill lol! We are still spring cleaning the goat shed and pottering arond doing bits and bobs of jobs. Some have been to town today and have bought some potted plants to put out front to bring some colour to the place, they look really pretty and we will have to make an extra effort with our watering to make sure they stay that way.

Dinners have been amazing and we are becoming really quite versatile cooks with our limited ingredients. We have a heap of onions so Robbo made onion soup yesterday for starter (it has been windy days in more ways than one!), then Ana and Libby did an amazing vege pie for main, and then I made chocolate pear maddock for pudding (hope your proud mum and I did it off the top of my head without a recipe!). We haven't eaten that much since we've been here so all went to the beach with slightly uncomfortably full bellies!

We are really busy with visitors now and are booking up up to 5 days in advance. While this means we are rushed off our feet, its also really positive, the more people who come and see and see these awesome creatures the more we can educate and the donations can go towards further equipment.

Off on night duty again tonight looking forward to it. Had a quick hour power nap just now so will be up and raring to go by the time 8.00 comes. Think it will be another busy night tonight. Onto more pressing matters who can I 'borrow' a jumper off of tonight.......and who do I want to walk with (otherwise known as who has the best biscuit stash?!). Let the snooping begin.

20th June 2009

After much persuasion, a night on the beach and conversations like this:
Robin -IF you go
Ana- we ARE going
Robin- but IF you go you will only see a goat. And it’s boring.

We finally set off on our little trip round Cyprus

Keco, our amazing and friendly neighbour arrived at the goat shed early and gave us a lift to Girne. (awwwwww) After arriving in Girne we took a very breezy Dolmus (bus) to Nicosia. Lovely views of the Venetian Walls, the ancient Sofia Cathedral and the courtyard of the old Inn. Briefly lost in a seemingly endless succession of carpenter stalls and staring men. Much ice-cream enjoyed. We crossed the border into the Greek side of Cyprus. Poor Ana “suffered much” with her Capeverdean passport as the security officers struggled yet again to discover whether this country actually exists. We immediately went to the top of Debenhams. This sounds an odd thing to do, but it was advised to us that the top floor had amazing views of both sides of the border, and there indeed was! Only tourist destination seemed to be the motorcycle museum though. We passed.

Following this was an epic, roasting walk in the sun to a bus stop in the middle of nowhere. Only to find that the very unhelpful tourist information lady had directed us to an obscure suburb of Nicosia. Thirsty, desperate and slightly crazed by the sun, a local woman rescued us when we asked for directions saying simply “get in the car” and then proceeded to drive us to the bus stop for Famagusta!! To use Jimbob’s words, the bus was “ all kinds of sweaty” and took a good hour. When we finally reached the city there were absolutely no signs to the centre of town, but by some incredible fluke, we managed to walk there by accident. On arrival we drank about a gallon of water and orange juice sold to us by a man who insisted “ go left, Nicosia, left at roundabout. Nicosia. Left”… and so on. There we saw many Ancient ruins and another mosque where we unluckily ran into the ticket man on the way out. We spent about 10 minutes laughing at the green peace cyclist dude (who’d cycled all the way through Africa, and was going on to Iran) who was struggling to understand why the same ticket man kept saying “one person two tickets”. We bought a Fez as a peace offering for Robin, and in the faint hope that he would give us the night off, after our pathetic 3 hours sleep the night before. This failed.

Night on the beach was a struggle. There were a couple of nests, but we found it difficult to keep our eyes open. However, as Ana says “After Happiness death is nothing!!”

21st June 2009

I awoke this lunch time to find a number of missed calls on my phone and a lot of banter in the goat shed about a dead turtle and the press. Apparently a deceased loggerhead had been found on Alagadi this morning and caused some commotion with the local press and the volunteers after their mornings work on the North Coast. The team had decided to bury the large adult female at the back of the beach. With no pressing engagements this afternoon we decided to unearth the girl to conduct an autopsy. We loaded her into the back of the truck and carried her highly pressurised carcass into the goat-shed garden.

Loggerhead Autopsy

 Obviously dead for some days, her bloated body was hissing with gasses of decomposition, particularly notable was a break in the carapace towards the tail where gasses and innards were oozing, possibly a hit from a jet ski, as we are seeing these increasingly at Alagadi. With the turtle on her back we removed the plastron (ventral shell) and volunteers gathered around, close to vomiting from the smell. We removed the lungs and analysed the gastro-intestinal tract. The turtle certainly did not starve as the stomach and intestine were full with over 2kg of decomposing food. We analysed this and found the majority of the diet to consist of sponge, with many shells from various species of crabs. We also found tell tail remnants of whelks, the operculum doors that close these shells off to predators, these were from large whelks the hard opercula around the size of a thumb nail but the rest of the shell digested. We found a small piece of polythene in the intestine; clear evidence that litter on the beaches and in the sea is affecting the turtles, though this was not the probable cause of death, more likely the rupture form an impact to the posterior of the carapace.

At weekends we see jet skis travelling at great speed up and down Alagadi where turtles are aggregating to breed. Although no tags were found on this adult female and she was not carrying eggs at the time of death, if she had survived to breed at Alagadi she would have been one of 16 loggerhead females recorded this season, so 6.25% of the 2009 Alagadi breeding population. We can not afford to loose breeding adults like this and more needs to be done to prevent jet skis and motor boats from illegally using waters off prime nesting beaches such as Alagadi. After all Alagadi is the 5th most important nesting beach for the green turtle in the Mediterranean and is a hugely important conservation area for both species. An exclusion zone around the designated "Specially Protected Area" has been ignored for some years now.

We are conducting beach cleans on Alagadi every Monday and locals have been getting involved. We also hand out bin bags out on Sundays and speak to local bathers, encouraging them to take their litter off the beach on departure. If people would like to help us on Monday beach cleans we meet at the goat shed at 5pm.

24th June 2009

First day out west, Sam and I were met by the smelliest dead cow which had somehow made its way onto the beach, causing the walk of West 2 to become somewhat of an obstacle course, avoiding breathing for a while and cautiously testing the air after passing. Sam and I had at least one nest for the first few days, with Ainslie’s walks being somewhat less successful she was starting to lose faith. However a hot morning on Monster lead to a tired and thirsty Sam and I waiting at the beach bar (on a beach there are rarely people?!?!) trying to amuse ourselves while waiting for ages while Ainslie measured up her many turtle activities on her own. This led to Sam and I sunbathing, exploring the beach bar, complaining about their poor tiling and using their showers to cool off.

Chuckle Brothers

Several days our journey back home intercepted the Turkish army playing their war games, this consists of sitting in their many tanks behind small bushes. As none of us spoke particularly good Turkish, and weren’t sure how they would feel about our intrusion, we drove quietly trying not to do anything wrong. As Sam doesn’t actually let his camera leave his hand and photos of army personnel and land is forbidden, he obviously thought it would be a good idea to take photos.

A trip to the supermarket was filled with much hilarity as Sam found sweet corn with decidedly moustache-looking growths from the ends of them. Persuading Ainslie we needed some, the Chuckle Brothers later made an appearance in the Guzelyurt household.

St Hilarion Visit

Trying to fill our afternoons, and as the house was ridiculously hot, we decided to go off on a drive to see what we could find. We found a ‘Wooden faces of Cyprus’ exhibition, the army border to the South side and the most amazing views we were ‘forbidden’ to take photos of.

Turtle activity remained relatively busy, with several nests each day, ending in a disappointing find of two predated nests on Message. Large metal pegs are now being used to hold the wire cages down for forcefully than sticks, which will hopefully lessen the threat of predation by stray dogs.

Finding out my degree results, a celebration was planned, camping on the beach. Great, or so we thought. Dampness and a chilling wind meant our high spirits were flattened and a sleepless night followed.

After our morning on the beach on change over day, we ‘treated’ ourselves to a visit to St Hiliarion castle. Walking up the millions of stairs in the searing mid-day heat, oh what a treat. Amazing views and a good laugh at Sam taking so many photos of himself meant it was an end to a great week out West. West is Best.

26th June 2009

 nests on Alagadi now taking us up to 73! This was the busiest night I have seen in 5 seasons of night work here. The team pulled together working hard through the night, communicating well so that nothing got missed and we were off the beach by 5.30. Very pleased. Though, our guests were bit of a dissapointment as the majority only stayed to see the two loggerheads that nested within the first hour of darkness. Even with 5 green turtles on the beach at the same time digging, they could not be tempted to stay to see one lay, they don't know what they missed! Very generous in leaving us donations though that will keep us in oats and a roof over our heads. Our faithful companions Penny and Sally stuck it out until dawn and at one point were even left with a clipboard to monitor a turtle. I struggle to count the number of turtle encounters I had but at the end of the night at the midpoint we found the tell tail track of a loggerhead that had emerged, headed directly towards the group unseen and u-turned back into the sea. We concluded that Sally's snoring had put her off, although I don't think Sally had chance for any shut eye in all the commotion.

A huge thanks to Penny and Sally for your help, cake, and beach banter. Also to Alagadi residents Pat and John for your help in securing our turtle merchandise.

26th June 2009

Numbers from last night's craziness just in - on Alagadi 1 alone there were 8 nests (3 loggers, 5 greens), 5 u-turns and 5 false attempts. On Alagadi 2 (iki) there was one nest, 5 u-turns and 2 attempts. Nice one to those on the beach (except the people who need to learn the 24 hour clock!) and to those who typed up the data for an hour today (after too many jamjar mojitos last night)! Seemingly all the turtles in the world were on Alagadi last night as the daywork ladies had only one u-turn and one attempt to contend with this morning. On the volunteer side we say goodbye to Celli for a week and hello to Michele, our resident german from last year, and Mehmet, our resident Turk also from last year. Hosgeldiniz guys. Turk, Turk, Turk it up! Tonight is our much loved boss man Mr Robbo Robbo's night off so it's left to the rest of us to man the beach and hope that nothing goes shockingly, horrifically wrong during this time. Not on my watch people.

Thanks to people at home for keeping us up to date with current affairs, the sad news about MJ came through last night and in tribute we will all be moonwalking the beach tonight and having a one minute radio silence in between turtles. Heee heee, shamone big man..

29th June 2009

So after a tough week with all the turtles in the Med seemingly visiting Alagadi on yesterday’s changeover we were rewarded with a pool party at Penny’s, everyone’s favourite event! Enough food to feed a small army was presented and as usual we tucked in with full force gorging until we could no longer move! Thank you so much Penny, I’m sure you know how much we love your food by now, such a good change from courgettes!

Penny's Pool Party

Penny treated the volunteers, all except me, who was stuck on tourist duty all alone in the Goatshed, to games! The turtle egg hunt was a great success and everyone was gloating with their prizes, Sam was especially proud of his wine, packet of milky ways and a packet of biscuits, which he kindly gave away to the Germans who failed….

Becca, Sam and myself were first on Iki so headed over very slowly as the size of our stomachs was preventing us from going any quicker. It started out as a quiet night and all was well with us walking slowly and quietly backwards and forwards trying to digest, when we were rudely interrupted by bright lights in Iki car park. We stumbled back to sleepy rock avoiding Turk holes on the way and sent Sam over the rocks to investigate. We had seen a torch heading out around the rocks so expected maybe a late night fisherman or two….unfortunately what Sam met was far, far worse! Becca and myself hung back in anticipation hoping not to see the three flashes warning of imminent death from Sam. After what felt like an eternity he returned triumphant from over the rocks with a half naked Turkish man and English women in tow they had clearly decided that the rocks were an appropriate place for those kinds of shenanigans! Becca tried to hold it together but laughed almost hysterically at the Turkish man with a rather round paunch and tight pants and shoes on! Fortunately we were quickly rid of them and back to turtle patrol.

Today has been a day of progress, cage making took the fore and we now have plenty on white domes to protect our nests. The Monday beach clean is currently in progress and hopefully the volunteers are not suffering too much!

That’s all for now, other than to say that the turtles are still coming ashore thick and fast and we are now up to 85 nests on Alagadi alone, there’s potential for this number to almost double as we are only roughly half way through nesting and our first hatchlings could potentially break through the sand a couple of weeks from now! Emma xx

3rd July 2009

A couple of nights ago we had a green turtle lay unusually late in the night, beginning at 05.10. Although annoying it lets us take some good pictures!!

A Laying Green Turtle

Nesting is still in full swing down at Alagadi and the return of the first greens for their 2nd or 3rd clutches means satellite transmitter time! This year 7 transmitters will be deployed and i'm sure you all know that the first one was used on the infamous randall, the male green who appeared on the beach earlier in the season. The next was deployed two nights ago on a small loggerhead measuring 64cms in length. This will allow us to compare her movements with those of the loggerheads satellite tagged in previous seasons to see whether size has any bearing on their migrations. The rest will be designated for greens of over 80cms who have a previous nesting history and have returned to lay their 3rd clutch this season.

Last night a suitable candidate appeared on bay 3 around 1am and the volunteers and visitors waited excitedly to see if she would lay. Luckily she did and with the shout of "Satelliiiittttttttte!" we all mobilised to begin, bringing the heavy satellite equipment over to the turtle, along with tables from the beach bar (thanks to the strong visitors who helped the girls lug them halfway along the beach!).We performed the usual nesting duties while Robin got the glue and sandpaper ready. We waited for her to begin covering her body pit before we prepared her shell by cleaning and sanding to remover algae and barnacles. She was, in the words of our leader, "freaking massive" so there was definitely space for the transmitter on her back! She was very calm during the application of the glue and transmitter, carrying on covering her body pit as if we weren't even there. When she was ready to move off the tables came in handy to form a box around her as the glue must be given at least 30 minutes to harden before coming into contact with water.

Working Hard on the Boat Trip

She didn't seem to mind being out of water for a little longer to catch her breath before we removed the tables and watched her make her way to the sea. The visitors named her Marilyn, as in Monroe because she was obviously a hottie in the turtle world.

A little more info for you aspiring turtle watchers: this female nested this season on 08/06 and 21/06 and is 93cm long, 87cm wide. She was first spotted at Alagadi in 1993 and has been returning ever since. From this data we can imagine that she is pretty old and hopefully we will be able to track her for at least the next year. If you would like to follow her on www.seaturtle.org the transmitter number is: 95097.

The excitement hasn't just been at basecamp this week, the Westies have been battling with some car issues which isn't unususual for this part of the project. The constant off-roading to the West beaches plays havoc with the cars and it wouldn't be West without some kind of vehicular problem! Luckily they were able to get back out there after a couple of days with the truck... although the lack of 4x4 caused a bit of a sand stickage problem and the truck was going nowhere very very slowly indeed. Step in Tony Hutchinson, our hero, and all was saved! So thank you very much to Tony and Maureen Hutchinson for keeping a watchful eye over the Westies.

It's not all work and no play down here though, most of the volunteers enjoyed a boat trip yesterday and welcomed the relaxation but not the excessive sunburn!

6th July 2009

As things start hotting up in Cyprus (physically and metaphorically) the ‘to do’ list is getting longer and our patience with the heat, shorter, thus the delay between blog entries.

Celli and a Greek god (Celli on Right!)

Firstly we’d all like to give a big thanks to the lovely ladies at mermaid fabrics who have donated us soft, plump cushions that make the goat shed’s ‘comfy’ chairs actually comfy. The volunteers and our visitors are extremely grateful.

So this week…. Well I’ve been taking a holiday from the turtle project to go sailing with some friends around the Greek Islands. After stunning them by having 3 hot showers a day, my propensity to eat enormous amounts of meat and a near nervous breakdown when offered a courgette for dinner, I settled back into the luxuries that come with non-turtle project life quite easily. It was a truly fantastic holiday, but as I was walking up the drive to the goat shed on my return, past the stink of the donkeys in the midday sun, it felt like I was coming home.

A Green Nest

On the Sunday we were thrown a barbeque by Collsey’s family, which was fantastic. A never ending supply of fabulous food, including what could only be gallons of refried beans, was set out on the table and we all eagerly dug in. (Is it just me or is this blog more about food than turtles sometimes!). After much merriment and excitement caused by locating a ‘Hello’ magazine only 1 week out of date, we had desert of ice-cream and éclairs. Thank you so much for a fantastic afternoon and thank you to the ice-cream man from ………. For discounting such a scrumptious treat.

Gill Posing with the Dawney

Ok, so back to some turtle information. We have now satellited 4 turtles (including Randel the male). The process of putting on the satellite transmitters is to surround the turtle with the satellite box (made by Sam), use sandpaper on the middle of the shell, apply acetone to remove any grease, then add the satellite by building Epoxy Resin over the top and leaving to dry for 30 minutes. Despite sounding like Blue Peter instructions, this is usually completed with fewer problems. If you would like to see this being done please book in for the night watch, we still have 3 to apply and it may be your lucky night! To follow our satellite turtles please go to www.seaturtle.org/tracking.

A journalist, Brook Anderson, joined us from the Wall Street Journal this week to observe and write about what we do at the turtle project, our aims and obstacles. We obviously bored her rigid about litter issues, kept her up all night with one very committed turtle and treated her to a project courgette special. Despite being reluctant to join in our (extremely tacky but fun) 4th of July celebrations (Kate made hats and everything!), we hope she had a good time with us during her stay on the project.

Last night we had very little happen on Alagadi 1 but there was pandemonium on Iki, with 6 turtles and one green laying at 5:30am, ensuring volunteers were still on the beach at 7:00am. This now brings up our total nests to 111 on Alagadi, with many turtles not yet having laid their 3rd clutch. We therefore hope to have a good number of nests this year. Hatchlings should be starting within the next week sometime, so keep an eye on this blog for any events you would like to attend.

14th July 2009

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!

16th July 2009

An update from out west!

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!

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!

18th July 2009

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.

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!

24th July 2009

At the beginning of June we were called to the Acapulco beach resort to look at 2 loggerhead activities that staff had reported that night. With sunloungers across the beach and bright lights shining from the hotel complex we decided to relocate the two nests that we found that morning to Alagadi and last night one of them hatched. So today we are inviting everybody to come along to Alagadi at 18:30 to see the excavation of this nest and babies.

25th July 2009

 Good morning and welcome to another episode of the turtle blog.

I spent last week out West in a town called Guzelyurt. This was my first week of day-work in 8 weeks of night-work and I was desperate to get some sun. Every morning we’d wake up at 5 and go off-road to the West beaches where we would poke for nests, measure tracks and try on some of the random clothes we found washed up on the beach. Although it is supposed to be coming to the end of the season for nesting turtles, we still found a high number of nests on all of the 5 west beaches.

OOut in Guzelyurt, the afternoons are your own so we wondered around town and made friends with some of the locals. We were taken on a tour of a nearby supermarket car park whilst Turkish drum and base blast out from the car stereo, invited for Turkish Coffee and challenged to a game of backgammon on the street. Eventually Heather and I managed to win 2 games to 1 (mum I hope you're proud), which didn’t seem to go down too well with our friendly Turkish man. Apparently losing Backgammon to British girls is humiliating! We also visited some ruins from over 300 BC and watched the sun set whilst eating home made (by Ainslie) banana pancakes over Monster (a particularly hideous beach). It was a very relaxing week and it was nice to see some more of Northern Cyprus, but its great to be back at the goatshed!

An Emerging Hatchling

Last Monday we had our first public excavation of a hatched loggerhead nest. We all traipsed down to Alagadi 1 armed with weighing scales, tape measures and clip-boards ready to dig down for forgotten hatchlings. After a fair amount of digging by those enthusiastic to get sweaty, we found a number of hatchlings at the bottom of the nest, which were unlikely to surface on their own.

These hatchlings were weighed and measured and the number of hatched and un-hatched eggshells counted. We also opened any failed eggs to note the stage of development, this information is used in analyses later. Once all the visitors had seen the little loggers and the sun had become cooler, we released the hatchlings back into the water. Creating a line in the sand as a starting platform and using the sea as the finish line, the hatchlings didn’t know how much was riding on their being the first to the water! To everyone that was there, we hoped you enjoyed seeing the hatchlings return to the water as much as we did.

On waking after 9 tiring hours at the beach on Wednesday, we were greeted with ‘Move Hay Bales’ on the job list. At first this doesn’t sound too bad but on going round the back of the cow shed we were met with a pile of bales that seemed to reach to the sun. Three gallons of sweat, two hay fights and one hay rash later the job was done.

This week we also said goodbye to some of our favourite volunteers. Gill and Libby left on Tuesday morning and Emma left after a night of debauchery at 3 o clock Wednesday morning. We miss them loads and wish they’d come back. We do however have many new volunteers who seem to be getting stuck into Cyprus life. Josh and Henry came last week and just a few days ago Sean, Tom, Iona and Samuel turned up and finally Jim Bob has returned after just a few weeks. He obviously couldn’t keep himself away! Everyone seems to have settled in well, although we are starting to wonder if Henry suffers from narcolepsy or whether he’s just having problems adjusting to our nocturnal lifestyle.

Sam (now known as Other One Sam) would also like me to mention that it is his last week because apparently everything is about him.

4th August 2009

This week has seen the loss of more of our long time volunteers. Sam, Kate and Alex left for England after a raucous night of singing, dancing and twister at the goatshed and Adrian (aka ze German) left for Germany this morning. We’re going to miss them loads so I have compiled a little list of Cyprus memories for them.

1) Kate pit tagging herself in the thumb
2) Sam wondering if you could become pregnant with turtle babies if you were in the wrong place and the wrong time
3) Adrian sleeping in the hammock
4) Alex attempting to play volleyball and leapfrog other volunteers in the pool#
5) Adrian sitting in the shower fully clothed bathing a cut foot and a cut chin
6) Sam and Kate failing to balance standing on an upside down kayak in a prohibited pool.
7) Alex drunkenly wondering bay 1 and 2
8) Sam’s many many food fights
9) Adrian’s roof time

So bye to all of you and we miss you loads.

So this week has been really busy. We still have adult turtles coming up to lay on Alagadi, which is very late in the season. Plus we’re really in the swing of the hatchling season now so we’re having public excavations on most days. If you would like to come and watch an excavation please phone 05338678188 after 9:30am and we will let you know if we have an excavation that afternoon.

Last Sunday we were invited to a pool party at Penny’s house, which was brilliant. The party entailed an entire day of fantastic food, quad bike racing, pool volleyball (with some dubious rules), a treasure hunt and everyone, with out exception, being thrown in pool fully clothed. It was a bedraggled but happy group of volunteers that trudged down to the beach for night work that evening.

A few of us managed to go on a small adventure the other night to go and see Harry Potter in Nicosia. After an extortionate taxi ride, during which we feared for our lives, we finally turned up 10 minutes late to sit in a cinema so long and narrow we could only just make out the screen from our seat. Even with that and the picture looking distinctly like a 70’s horror film in a strange mixture of sepia and flashing lights, we still managed to sleep through almost the entire film. (apart from Collsy, who obviously doesn’t work hard enough). Oh well, this is what nights off are all about.

Another dead turtle washed up on Lara beach this week. So obviously it was necessary to stink out the goatshed by doing an autopsy and using the excrement as a green fertilizer. Turtle poo usually consists of small green fragments of runny liquid. If you would like to observe some, please come to the goatshed, where a turtle has been previously squeezed and emptied on our garden. Please excuse the smell, it’s only partially the volunteers.

Well I better go as I can hear the entire goatshed clamouring for tea, which apparently they can’t make themselves.

8th August 2009

Things are really winding down now with the adults although last night we unexpectedly had a green nest taking the total on Alagadi to 181. If you check out www.seaturtle.org/tracking you'll see that all of the females that we are tracking have left and some of them have hit the coasts of Syria, Lebanon and Egypt already. Hatching however is picking up and we expect this to peak towards the end of this month.

We have been enjoying the cooler weather these last few days and with a later start on the beach at night time an extra hour in the day here and there goes a long way. Today Tom and I took a trip to the south side crossing the border at Lefkosia where we indulged in some western food and drank coffee on the top floor of Debenhams over the city. Our visa's were due to run out so this jolly was a strict necessity.

Eight of the volunteers have been invited to help out with the national celebrations at Erenkoy today. But despite the lack of manpower we are going ahead with an excavation this evening.

Hope to get into town soon to catch up with you Angela....Monday perhaps. And thanks to Pat and John for dropping off the cash that you raised on the stall