Trip Ashore and Turtle Lore

We were eating egg and cheeses on English muffins by 6am this morning.  Still, I was just dead beat.  We packed up the gear and headed off to our separate beaches, with a brief stop at the shop to top off a sinking tire on the Mule, and to release yet another mouse.  We've had several mice since last mention: Maxwell, Marvin & Oscar (released at the dump), and possibly a fourth.  Today's I will name right now as Ruth-Ann.  I just don't know if we'll be able to continue to keep track of them all.  The balloon count is suffering the same dilemma.  While we continue to pick them up from the beach, it is not with the dedication we began with.  On North beach, we have to stop over 30 times to check on nests, on South Middle there are no brakes on the ATV with which to stop quickly - these things hinder our balloon collecting efforts...

Dead beat as I mentioned, I arrived at the kayak to South Middle at 6:45am.  Don't tell Kate, but I let the engine run, with the ice cool A/C on, and slept in the truck until 7:15.  Once I woke up for real, I packed the kayak and paddled out.  I drove past the plover nest, eggs still intact, and out to the beach.  I ran my patrol as usual, and didn't find a single crawl, not one!  I checked on all my nest, got back to the kayak, back to the truck and then onto South Beach.  Once again, not a single crawl!  I couldn't believe it - I had absolutely no work to do.

Feeling guilty that I could be home within two hours of leaving the house, I decided to run up to the north end to help Kate out.  When I got there, I found her just finishing up on North Middle.  I assumed she had found nothing on her beaches too and we could go home.  But, she informed me that she started with North Middle, and hadn't done North.  She found 2 nests and 2 false crawl on N.M., along with a dead raccoon that Eric must have hunted the night before.  Still ready to help her, I waited for her to cross back and together we would run Bradley (North).

I took the truck ahead fast looking for crawls, ready to radio her back with the number of screens she would need to pick up at our stash.  I found one false crawl, then another, and finally a nest.  I jumped out of the truck at the nest, and gave it one, two, three, four probes.  Eggs located, I marked it with some sea wrack, drew an arrow for Kate, and headed north.  At the north tip, I found two raccoon traps that we had set empty.  It appeared that ghost crabs had stolen the bait.  I also found, sadly, the Spotted Eagle Ray from yesterday.  Despite my efforts, it had died.  Kate's right, shrimping sucks.

I started checking nests, and headed south to meet up with Kate.  Once we were reunited, we worked together to relocate the last nest we found.  Kate picked up the rest of the nests south, checking on them as I headed home.  She arrived at our back porch only a few minutes after me.  

We got cleaned up and ready for a ride with Andy to shore at noon.  We wanted to finally know for sure if our package was lost, or if he had just missed it.  It was lost - we couldn't find it anywhere.  We left the dock house and went to town for a few supplies at the hardware store and the grocery store.  Then we went out to lunch/dinner at a local Mexican place.  We met Andy back on the dock at 4:00, but had to wait until almost 5:30 for his wife Amanda, before we could leave.

At home, we put away our supplies, and found a note from our neighbor Jim about some teachers that were staying at the boarding house.  They were interested in sea turtle stuff, and we were encouraged to go visit them.  They offered us dinner, which we declined having just eaten, but we stayed for a couple of hours telling them all our stories and answering their questions.  They plan to run the beach tonight and see a nesting mama.  I wish them luck.  Tomorrow, we may engage them again for more sea turtle fun.  Tonight however, we'll be relaxing while they are out there in the dark.