Well, it's happened again. Another morning turtle...that we didn't get to see! For those of you who haven't read the recent blog posts, I seem to have a curse. In all the time that I've been working with them, I've never seen a "morning leatherback." They've happened several times each season but since I've worked here, I haven't managed to catch one even though everyone else has. We finished up last night thinking we had been skunked, no turtles! So everyone headed home. Tommy was only able to survey the north part of Jupiter until about midnight before the tide got too high to pass the narrow stretch around the Jupiter Beach Resort. Rebeccah and Andrew weren't able to make it past the Singer Island sea wall after that either. Everyone headed home around 7:00 am and Chris and I headed out to do the morning survey. We got to the north end of Jupiter, beyond where Tommy had been able to survey, and there it was - a nest :( We didn't really expect to see a nest there, the beach just south of the Jupiter Inlet doesn't see many leatherback nests. A beachgoer approached us to let us know that he had just watched her head back into the water. I'm now convinced that my first morning leatherback will be a truly spectacular one, and completely worth the wait! Here's hoping that we'll have a turtle-filled night tonight!
