High Tides

Plenty has happened in the past week.  It's all a bit mashed up now in my memory.  We really should be writing everyday to avoid this exact problem.  Hopefully we can get back on a regular routine...

Last we wrote, we were still camping out for the Leatherback nest.  We were convinced it would hatch after I saw a single crawl out of the nest.  We had a great time camping, but we never did see any baby Leatherbacks emerge.  On Tuesday, we worked together, so that we could inventory the nest.  Unfortunately, there were no living stragglers that we could release.  The nest overall didn't fare so well, only 7 hatchlings emerged.

It turned out that working together Tuesday may not have been the best plan.  See, since Monday, the tides have been especially high.  With the high water, parts of our beaches were completely inaccessible at certain times.  On Tuesday, high tide was around 8:45am.  Taking this into account, Kate and I decided to sleep in, wait for the high tide to pass, and then head out to work.  It worked out well as far as being able to get where we needed to go, but the late start, combined with working as one team instead of splitting the island, meant that we were in for one long day.

We went to South Middle first, ran the patrol, then inventoried the Leatherback nest.  Afterward, we broke down the tent and packed all our camping gear onto the ATV.  We rode it all back, and managed to fit it all into the kayak.  There was barely room to fit us both in.  Luckily, we didn't have to paddle as the tide was moving fast, quickly returning us to our launch.  Next we worked South beach, and were disappointed to find several of our nests had washed over in the high water.  This we already knew would be the case, as it happened the day before as well.  We also knew it would be much worse on North Beach.

Once we were on Bradley I was shocked to see how high the tides had gone.  Kate had run the north end the day before and had already witnessed it, but it was a surprise to me.  Nests that we have always considered high and dry were licked by the tides.  On the north tip of Bradley, and on North Middle, we lost nests completely - finding screens and white marker posts washed up in the sea wrack.  There were also a couple nests were the tide had eroded beneath the screen, leaving the nest cavity exposed and eggs spilling out onto the beach.  We relocated some eggs, though their fate is not hopeful, and inventoried everything else to get what data we could.  It was frustrating to lose nests like this, with the ideas that maybe we should have relocated more or place those we did higher.

Once we did finish the beach, we still had to clean up ourselves and our equipment, then head out to feed and water Andy's pets, and Mrs. West's horses.  Did I mention we're on pet patrol again this week?

After finally finishing all our work for the day, sometime after 6pm, we should have come home and went right to bed.  Instead, we found Cody at the house, planning to take his first night off.  In his fridge he had, as he would say, "enough beer to kill a kindergarten class".  Against our better judgement, Kate and I joined Cody at the diner table.  Hours later, we finally slept.

We both woke up yesterday a bit hung over, but still early, determined to beat the tides to our beaches.  Kate got lucky with the south end patrol, and the air conditioned truck.  I on the other hand had the north end, and my day began with a sunrise bicycle ride.  It was hot and humid, and the sand was too soft for the bike.  It made for a terrible morning.  Once I was done with North Middle, I took a dip in the tidal creek to cool down, then began my Bradley patrol.

I had taken too long.  When I got to the middle of North beach, the tide had come up high enough to block me from getting to the north end.  This was the first time ever that one of us wasn't able to finish our patrol.  Even though high tide was still hours away, the water was just so high already.  This also meant I couldn't do the three inventories that were scheduled.  It also meant that I'd have to run the North end again today, since I couldn't stick Kate with the work.

As it turned out, I did get to finish my patrol yesterday.  Once we were home again and showered, we went over to Andy's to check on the pets and take a TV break.  While were there, we got a call from Mark, who had just returned back from another week down in the Gulf working with the spill.  We had plenty of things to discuss with him, and did so for about an hour.  The other reason he called, was that someone had reported a dead turtle at the north end of the island.  It wouldn't stay there overnight, so we needed to go back and get it.

After a long ride all the way back to beach, and all the way up to it's end, we found the turtle.  We took some pictures and coordinates, and then bagged it up to finish the pictures, measurements, etcetera, at home.  While we were back on the beach, we got a chance to check over the nests I'd missed in the morning.  There were also more nests destroyed by the tide.  Once we fixed up the nests as best we could, we drove home, finished with the stranded turtle, bagged it, froze it, and took some more showers.  Then it was time to feed the animals yet again.  Thankfully, Winnie took care of feeding the horses for us - one less thing.  Finally, it was bed for us.

This morning the tides were still high, and there were a few nests that washed over again, but none were washed away.  Those that did wash over today will most likely not hatch, since this is the third or fourth washover for them.  At this point, the eggs are drowned.

For the first time in several days, maybe longer, we finished up and got home early.  We're spending the time catching up on laundry, this blog, emails, photos and rest.  We need to get it in while we can, because the list of things to do keeps growing.  We've got parts coming for the truck which I'll need to install, all the screens, posts and stakes that we're taking off the beach need to be cleaned up and stored for next year, and a bunch of little projects need finishing over the next month and a half.  And of course, we need to start planning the next big adventure for Steve and Kate.