the HI report

Things have been very crazy on Hutchinson lately...we have a few turtles that have made repeat appearances, and it's great to see familiar "faces" on the beach. Three new turtles that I tagged (Carla, Chrissa, Tierney) have been back to see us. Carla has been seen the most (seems to be picky about the sand she nests in and false crawls a lot), and Chriss and Tierney were back after about 10-11 days after I tagged them. Two new ones were tagged this week, Chassy and Caitlin. Looking forward to seeing more of them. I'm really beginning to feel at home on my new beach. I wish Chris, Kelly and Sandy could come up and survey with me up there! It's a huge beach now, after the renourishment project, but the sand it very coarse and densely packed. May be a problem for nesting turtles (maybe Loggerheads) or for developing and emerging hatchlings. We are relocating all of the leatherback nests now because heavy equipment is still driving all over the beach. Hopefully the hatching success will be good. I hope I get to tag a few more turtles before this position ends at the end of April...but what a great learning experience it has been!