I really can't believe the luck we are having and the season we are ending up with. another 3 turtle night tonight. Sandy did return around 1030 pm and nested successfully near the old Juno Pier site. there were a few enthusiastic local high school students there to watch her nest. they really enjoyed seeing her. it seems amazing to me that this is the 7th time we have seen this turtle, and the 5th time she has nested on our beach. she is really cool. after seeing Sandy, we headed south to Singer Island and on the way back north came across a new turtle in MacArthur Park. Jeremy did the tagging, and we will post the name we decide on tomorrow. she had lots of little barnacles all over her carapace and flippers. quick nester, she laid all her eggs in 8 minutes. whatever the bugs were that were chewing us up, they were horrendous and we tagged the turtle and ran for the Gator to keep patrolling. Further north, we were lucky to see Zhang finishing up nesting and heading back to the water. another 10 minutes and we would have missed her. she was probably nesting at the same time as our new turtle was. the ocean was so flat tonight, it looked like an ice skating rink. not a ripple and barely a wave at the shore. cool temperature though, it rained a lot this evening before we got started. great night.
we decided on some names for our new turtles from last night. on Singer Island, we had a couple from Ohio/New York watching us tag the turtle. we promised that we would try to find a star name that incorporated Carol's name into it. found the perfect one. there is a star named Cor Caroli so we dropped the Cor part and ended up with Caroli. couldn't do much better! (hope to hear from you guys sometime). our other new turtle we named Lynx for the constellation.
getting myself into bed now. 2 very late nights in a row with little sleep in the daytime....
