Month Two

Yesterday marked one month on the island.  It's gone by really fast, but thankfully, there's 4 more to go.

I worked the beaches alone yesterday, giving Kate the day off.  It was raining in the morning, and the internet was down, so I couldn't get the weather report.  This led me to take the truck, which is a nice treat, having music and air conditioning all day.  With the truck, the ride is a little rougher in the rough parts, but it's a lot faster, and smoother, in the smooth parts.

By the time I got to High Causeway, the rain had already quit, and I'd realized I didn't really need the truck, but I was sure glad to have it when I discovered a gigantic alligator blocking my path.  We've encountered this same monster before.  He's large, he's mean, and he's stubborn.  There isn't much you can do to move an alligator, besides make a lot of noise and throw things at him.  I honked and honked, flashed the lights, revved the engine, even lunged the truck at him a few times.  Nothing fazed him, so I reached for the camera.  Of course this is the time he decided to move.  By the time I'd switched lenses he was up and walking.  I only managed to get this one through the window, before he disappeared into the water.  Before he moved, he was stretched from one side of the road to the other, with some of his tail in the grass.

I got out to North Beach just before low tide.  During high tide, the creek is over my head, and we usually take the blue kayak across.  But now, it was particularly low, only an inch or two deep, and still dropping.  I was able to drive across to North Middle, and turn what is normally an hour walk, or 30 minute bike ride, into a 10 minute cruise.  I had one false crawl over there, an obvious one. False crawls are similar to the nests in that they are either real easy, or a real pain.  This one was just a single track, completely continuous.  The turtle came up the beach, hit a scarp, turned around and went back out.  The tricky ones involve an area that is disturbed like a nest, but isn't.  Those can take hours of digging and probing before we can really call it a false crawl.  The one I had here took 5 minutes.

After I had checked on all the North Middle nests, and completed it's survey, I crossed the little creek again, back to Bradley Beach.  I headed north, stopping at each of 23 incubating nests along the way checking for egg losses.  All were safe and sound, and I added a 24th nest during my patrol.  I also encountered 2 more false crawls on this survey.  One crawl started high on the beach, which means the turtle came up early in the night, when the tide was high.  She ran into some down trees there, turned right around and went back in the water.  Just 20 feet to the south was another false crawl, this one started much lower on the beach, indicating the turtle came up later, and leading me to believe it was the same turtle, returning to try again after her first attempt failed.

The differential between the in track, and the out track, on this second false crawl was large, meaning she stayed on the beach for awhile.  When I followed it up, there was a large disturbed area that looked similar to a nest, but now exactly like one.  This meant it'd be a tricky one, and I'd have to work it over well to be sure there was no eggs.  After half an hour or so of probing, removing sand and probing again, I was confident there were no eggs there, so I moved on with the day, and off of North Beach.

The Southern beaches had nothing at all for me, except a nasty headache.  I've been getting them often, and am convinced it's dehydration, even though I'm drinking enough water to pee clear all the time.  It didn't help that I'd forgotten my sunglasses, and had been starting into the bright sand for several hours.

When I got home, Kate told me Andy was going to shore at 1:30.  I took some aspirin and a nap.  When I woke up, we grabbed our shopping bags and our cooler, and headed to the dock to meet him.  While on shore we hung out on River Street in downtown Savannah.  We had a few drinks with lunch, then went to the grocery store for a few things.  We also raided the RV for a few things we wanted.  Then we were back on the boat, and back home by 7.  We stayed up a bit longer, finally succumbing to the weariness brought on by yet another long day.