Summer Solstice, Day 50, and Nest 100!

Today is a day for celebration.  Today, the Summer Solstice, is the longest day of the year, a major pagan holiday, also known as the first day of summer.  Today is Joe & Liz's anniversary.  Today is our 50th day on Ossabaw.  And today, we had our 100th nest (well, actually more, but it's a milestone!).

We awoke tired but were able to hit the dirt road to be on the beach for sunrise.  I was on South Beach and quickly found my first nest, egg in hand by 6:45.  I found several more false crawls, most ending in trees and eroded dunes.  One of our nests, SB1, had hog rooting around and a little under the screening.  I was so nervous to approach it, but we were lucky.  They stopped just shy of the egg cavity.  I filled it all in and re-screened the nest.  Steve called me very early, as I was working on a false crawl where the tracks disappeared completely in the dry sand.  His words: "Sunshine Turtle!"  A Sunshine, or Sunrise Turtle, is a sea turtle that nests so late in the night that she is seen at dawn.  She was already making her way to the water when Steve found her, but fortunately he had enough time to take lots of great pictures.  Her nest, NB61, is officially nest #100.


I was quickly done South Beach, and then found nothing on South Middle Beach so I headed north to meet Steve.  I hit the beach and didn't see any truck tracks that led toward the kayak so I assumed he was still on North Beach.  I began the trip north and immediately started seeing crawl after crawl.  I could see some had posts, marking a nest, and then another nest...and it continued the entire trip.  At first I was keeping track but soon lost count.  I found Steve north of the myrtles, on Sea Turtle Row, relocating a nest.  He told me he was on his sixth nest so far.  I saw a huge track just north of us, that apparently he hadn't noticed yet.  We finished the nest he was working on and started the next.  It was a little tricky, including an abandoned nest cavity.  The second body pit was more of a large, elongated disturbed area.  I was hoping it was more than a false crawl, so Steve could break his one-day record of six nests.  Soon, he found the eggs, and now he had his seventh nest of the morning.  We screened it off and continued north, still more beach to patrol.  We only found one more false crawl.  As we headed back, I checked out a crawl that didn't appear to have been marked off by Steve.  I flagged him down as he was checking our nests and he realized he passed it during his last relocation, as he was so focused on getting the eggs back into the ground.  I left him to it and started checking more nests.  He couldn't find anything, and we agreed to send him to North Middle while I checked the rest of the nests.  Soon we met back up, all work done, with a grand total of 8 nests and 8 false crawls.  Our biggest day yet, and instead of hitting 100, we rolled right past it.  We've surpassed last year's total of 104 as we now stand at 106! (We're the northern orange dot, only the 2nd island to have over 100.)


We spent the next while throwing the cast net, catching bait fish and tiny white shrimp.  We then tried fishing in the surf since the tide was low and the creek was only a foot deep.  After trying valiantly for over an hour, we called it quits.  Steve did have some bites, and often found half of his bait missing.  We think it was sharks, but never reeled anything in.  Neither of us has any desire to hook a shark, so I'm glad they got away with some free lunch.  Our backup plan was to hit the causeway and pick up some blue crabs.  On the drive over we saw a pair of fawns.  No mom, just babies.  Too cute.  Soon we were at the culvert.  Steve checked on the trap and found three crabs.  Not too bad.  We set up our hand line traps, hoping to have the luck I had the other day.  It didn't turn out that way.  We didn't see any crabs around, or at least any large crabs.  Steve braved the marsh and walked around looking for them.  I tried the opposite side and only found more small crabs.  After 45 minutes or so, with thunderstorms looming in the west, we decided to give up and head home.  As Steve was baiting the crab pot, he saw only one crab.  We lost two crabs during the time we were there.  Hrm.  We've learned that there was a space in the trap where the crabs could escape, which meant that nobody had been stealing our crabs.  Steve cable-tied it shut so no more escape and tossed some dead bait fish in.  We'll have to figure out when the crabs are around, whether it be time of day or tide related.


Steve and I arrived home around 4 PM, almost 10.5 hours since we left the house.  We unpacked the Mule and truck.  Steve went in for some much needed food and I continued the clean up.  Later I completed the extra long data entry as Steve cooked dinner.  We are both glad that we're getting back out on adventure more, but we're both much more tired for it.  A small sacrifice for the great experiences.  And just so everyone knows, I'm very jealous of Steve's sunrise turtle.