3 turtle night! it was a hot, still, humid, buggy night but a good one.
early on, Niki and I got a turtle on Singer Island. we spotted her just coming out of the water, and she went up the beach, hit a wooden deck chair, turned around (we were worried she was going to leave) but then began digging her body pit. when we could approach safely, we found she was a new turtle. Niki did all the tagging, and we measured her (154.3 cm curved carapace length, a mid-size turtle). she had some major healing prop wounds on her carapace, they looked like they had been deep. she was quick to lay eggs and then get back into the water. we continued on our survey, got a little sleepy, made some coffee and then headed back out around 230. just up the beach we found another new leatherback, and tagged her too! at the same time, Chris was watching Sandy come ashore. unfortunately, Sandy didn't nest tonight. she dug 2 nest chambers near the Juno Pier and then left. she may not like the sand (renourishment sand) there, she did the same thing a couple nests ago. we will just hope she comes back elsewhere on Sunday night and we can catch her.
will post an update later today with names of our new turtles.
