All By Myself

We've been discussing the "day off" situation for several days now.  This morning, Kate seemed like she really didn't want to get out of bed, so I told her to stay there, turned out her light, shut the bedroom door, and began the day, all by myself.

She'd already snoozed the alarm clock 3 times, so I didn't have time for a hot breakfast, but a big bowl of cereal and banana soon filled me up.  I dressed for a chilly morning, packed up the mule with enough gear for 6 nests and hit the road.  For the first time since we've arrived, I was able to drive the roads without Kate, an infamous side-seat driver.  With the pedal to the floor for almost the entire ride, I was going a lightning fast 15 miles per hour!  Overall I was only able to shave 5 minutes off the normal travel time, having to stop twice to pick up things that had bounced out of the Mule, and still having to slow down at the worst sections of road.  I guess it didn't really pay off to go fast, but it was fun, woke me up, and set the pace I'd need for a busy morning.

I was on North Beach at 6:10, earlier than ever before and before the sun.  Twilight today began at 5:55, and it was surprisingly light out even without the sun above the horizon.  I headed north found a crawl, probed around, and had an egg in hand in just 5 minutes.  The nest was low, so I relocated it, higher on the beach, and was back to driving by 6:50, just 45 minutes to relocate a nest.  I found another crawl and had my next egg at 7:00.  I got this one on the 3rd probe, using a 4th probe just to be sure.  This one was in a good spot so it was left in situ, screened and finished in 15 minutes (7:15).  I reached the north tip of Bradley (North Beach) at 7:30.  I turned south, checking all our incubating nests along the way for signs of wash-over or predation, and to check the screens haven't been buried by blown sand.  I was parked at the blue kayak at 7:55.  I was feeling confident in my new turtle nest hunting abilities and quite happy with the speed I was getting things done.

As soon as  I arrived on North Middle I encountered 2 bald eagles perched only about 150m from each other.  When I approached on the bike, one flew off, followed a minute later by the other.  They seemed to go in the same direction, and I'm wondering if they could be a pair.  I'll have to check with our bird guy Tim.  The beach was empty of any turtle signs - typical for this beach, which we expect to only have about 10 nests all season.  With the bike I was able to finish North Middle by 8:30.

Half and hour's worth of bumpy Mule riding brought me to South Beach at 9:00.  I hit a nest in about 2 minutes.  This one looked pretty typical, and I was sure I'd be able to perform another "4 prober".  I hit a sweet spot in about the area I expected the nest cavity.  I dug down - nothing.  I probed around some more and hit another soft area, dug again, but it was a ghost crab tunnel.  I probed and probed the entire body pit, about a 7' x 5' oval, probing every 4 inches.  I couldn't find anything.  Sure that this was a nest, I got the shovel, removed all the humps, and skimmed down 6 inches from the base level of sand.  The sun was out now, along with the horse flies.  Sweaty and bitten, I now had a new flat area to work with.  I probed around again and hit the spot - or so I thought.  A ghost crab hole had tricked me again.  I probed the entire oval again and still found nothing.  I was starting to tell myself this was a false crawl, but all the signs of a nest where there, and I was determined to be patient and find the eggs.  Again I skimmed down 6 inches of sand.  I was now at wet hard sand.  I began probing again, and while doing so, my bare foot stepped into a soft spot.  I probed around that area and was confident this was it.  I dug down a few more inches and found an egg - finally!  It had taken me 40 minutes to locate this nest cavity.  I suppose the turtle gods had decided to check my ego and remind me that mama turtle is better at her job than I am at mine.

The nest was in a low, scarped area, and needed to be relocated.  I carefully dug up all 135 eggs, placed each one into a bucket, carried the bucket down the beach, dug a new nest cavity of similar size and shape into a higher dune and placed 134 eggs gently into their new home (saving one for research).  I filled in the hole, covered it with 2 different screens, secured those together with 2 cable ties, snipped the ends off the ties, hammered 4 metal stakes into the corners of the larger screen to keep it all down, wrote "SB2 - R - 5-23-10" (South Beach nest #2, relocated 5/23/10) on a both sides of a white painted post and hammered that into place.  I took the GPS coordinates of the new nest cavity, along with those for the original, and recorded other necessary information in the book.  Finally, I carried the one egg down to the water, broke it open, dumped the contents into the water, placed the shell into a vial filled with ethanol, and marked the vial "10-OSS-SB2" (2010, Ossabaw, nest SB2).  It was now 10:20, an hour and twenty minutes from when I first saw the crawl.

I continued my drive south and ran into another crawl 5 minutes down the beach.  Feeling tired now and a little defeated, I approached the body pit slowly.  I looked at the pit, then out to the ocean, gave a nod to the turtle gods, and looked back at the pit.  I picked my spot and pushed in the probe stick.  I found the nest cavity on the second probe!  I had an egg in hand a few seconds later.  I then spent about 5 minutes trying to decide whether or not to relocate this nest.  It was in a scarped area, but higher than most of the wrack.  It was also only a 100 meters or so from a nest I had relocated a few days ago.  I decided that since I was in doubt, I would leave the decision up to mama turtle.  She picked this spot, and cut me a break on finding it, so I figured it deserved to stay put.  Hopefully it won't be our first washed out nest.

I finished up South Beach around 11:00 and headed up to the double kayak.  There I found a cooler in my launch.  I crossed my fingers, prayed for beer, and peeked inside.  It was packed with dead fish and ice.  I had seen a boat tied up at South Beach, and figured the fishermen must have walked up here.  Still they were nowhere to be seen.  I moved the cooler out of the way, launched the kayak and paddled up to the ATV.  My drive on South Middle showed no crawls.  I used the opportunity to stash some extra screens on it's north end for the future.  I headed back, spotted the fishermen way up on the island and called Kate to relay all this to Andy, the Law Enforcement Officer for the island, so he could go chase them off.

On the way home I crossed paths with a young alligator, only 2-3 feet long.  After lunch, a shower, and a 20 minute nap, I was refreshed.  My whole survey today took me 6 hours.  It seemed long when I first took note of it, but I now realize that today was our biggest nesting day so far: 4 nests, 2 being relocated.  Really, I wasn't any more tired at the end of it than I am on days Kate and I work together.  I know I can handle the beaches all by myself, giving Kate much needed rest.  I'm a little worried for June, when we could easily have 8 nests in a day, along with false crawls (which I had none of today), but we need days off to recharge, so it has to be risked.  Now hopefully, Kate is ready to run the beach alone, and give me another day all by myself, this time at home.

Note: Being alone today, I didn't take any pictures.  The ones in this post are from days previous.