Week 4 & 5 - Costa Rica! Excavations, Canal Tours, Day turtle, green babies and Goodbyes!

Last week we said goodbye to the first group of research assistants 'Verde 1' as they left to head back home after three months of working at the station. The station started to feel much quieter with less people being around. The past two weeks have also gone super fast! With finishing up my research project write up to enjoying my last days at the centre I've had a lot to pack in and writing up my daily activities got a bit behind but I'll try my best to sum up my last two weeks in Costa Rica...

On Monday 21st August Gloria and I had a morning track survey on Boca side and we also had a nest excavation to do that morning. The eggs are definitely a lot smaller than the leatherback eggs I used to excavate, and also a lot less smelly! But we found more fungus than I was used to seeing. We also had a stage 2 embryo that had two heads! I then had patrol with Randall that evening and we marked a nest in 3.2 and worked lots of other turtles. We had the most beautiful night with lots of stars and even bioluminescent algae on the high tide line which sparkled as we walked along the beach, a pretty magical experience. I love watching the female turtles hauling themselves out of the water, pausing to take an immense breath, almost a dinosaur like sigh before continuing to haul their huge heavy bodies up the sand, powering through and over logs and branches squeaking under their plastrons almost comically before beginning their bodypitting process. But my absolute favourite thing is to watch them dig their egg chamber. When they finish bodypitting and spraying sand around them in a collosal sand angel display and they are happy with their spot, the transition from frantic movements to the delicate manourability and dexterous scooping of the back flippers carving out the egg chamber is such a contrast.  Pausing every so often for another immense deep breath head high to the sky before resting her head back down and dipping the alternate flipped down to carve out the rest of the chamber,  it's mesmorising and really amazing to watch how the back flipped delicately feels the sides and depth as it gets deeper beforing scooping until deciding when is deep enough to begin laying. 

Tuesday I then had a day off and worked on my research project. Wednesday and Thursday last week also brought two more night patrols and lots of turtles 😁 I enjoyed observing each nesting stage and taking note of the different personailities of each turtle, some seem frantic and rushed to try and nest and return to sea, some seem a little confused, some agitated or sensitive and others oblivious to our prescence so focused on the task at hand to be bothered by our presence - those are my favourite - sometimes I'm almost convinced they can look deep into your soul as I'm trying to check for tags or do measurements. 

On Saturday I woke up at 5am to walk to a local hotel in town for a canal tour in the national park. It was pouring with rain when I left the station but thankfully cleared up around 6:15am so the tour went ahead, just a little late. We travelled by small motor boat along the heavily vegetated canals which made it feel like we were in a Jurassic park movie 😊 tall green trees and palms overhanging and swallowing up the sky above. We saw loads of really call wildlife - Keel Billed Toucans, a Bat hawk/falcon?cormoront, green macaw, howler monkeys, blue heron, tiger heron, green ibis, 5 Cayman's, Male and female green basilisk to name a few! We also gained an eco volunteer called Sadie last weekend as well which is nice to have another person at the centre.

This week on Monday I went on a hike up Tortugeuro Cerro (Hill) apparently the highest point on the Carribean coast!? We left at 6am and were taken by the centre boat to the base. It took around half an hour maybe more, to hike up (there were stairs) but we saw toucans, lots of butterflies and red dart frogs as well as a family of spider monkeys on the way up. The view from the top of the Boca end of Tortuguero beach were also really pretty. Then in the evening I had night patrol with the Juniors which was good fun, most of them don't speak english but it was really fun to get to show them how to work a turtle and watch them in awe of the turtles. 

On Wednesday I had track survey in the morning, beach clean in the afternoon and patrol at night. Tyler and I left early (around 5:15am) for our track survey of park to increase our chances of seeing some cool animals on the way, and it definitely worked! We were lucky enough to see a turtle still camoflaguing her nest and then heading back to the sea, which is rare to see in daylight. So it was a very special last track survey. She had a tag on her right front flipper so we noted it down for Keilor to ID her. We also found a fresh Jaguar kill turtle so took some measurements and a skin sample for some other projects that are on going at the station, and then headed back to the centre after we were done with the nest checks. 

Wednesday night I went out for dinner with the research assistants to celebrate my time at the STC. Aidan even told the staff that it was my birthday so they played music and brought me cheesecake with candles in 😂 but the candles wouldn't stay lit (I think the candles knew it wasn't really my birthday). I had vegetable rice with salad and papas fritas which was very yummy! It was also my last patrol on Thursday😔 Me and Daniel on Boca 20:00-00:00, we worked a few turtles and managed to mark one last nest which Daniel let me count the eggs for and tag and measure her before having to run back to the station because we were running late. Overall a very successful last patrol. 

Yesterday was my journey from the STC back to San Jose, I woke up around 8am and finished packing my bags before heading into town. My boat picked me and others up at around 11:45 and the journey by boat was around an hour and a half. We then got picked up by mini bus and travelled to San Jose - it was a full day of travelling, arriving at my hotel at around 18:30 last night. My hotel room is very nice, this morning I went for breakfast and have been chilling in my room, even doing some pre travel yoga as I wait for my flight this evening. Excited to be heading home but sad to be leaving the STC 😊