Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!
Trip Start
Unknown
1
8
16
Trip End
Ongoing
Puerto San Carlos, Baja California, Mexico
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Camping was AWESOME! Thursday morning we packed up all our belongings and gear into our 3 boats and 1 car with a trailer and then left for Banderitas by boat. It was a beautiful start to a beautiful weekend because the ride over was calm and sunny. The ride only took like 45 mins by boat and I was told it was only 1Km away from our site so we were really in the back woods...or desert. When we got there we unloaded everything, build the 'campus shelter', and then went to build our tents. It was really windy so putting up the tent was interesting and one group's tent did sustain the wind so we had another girl move in which made the tent that was nice and roomy pretty cramped....but oh well we kept warm at night. She was a heavy breather so that was creepy haha. We did not do much for the rest of the day, we had class on the beach, I was on dinner crew so I helped make dinner, and made a campfire while the first round of turtle monitors went out. Turtle monitoring was held on both nights and there were three shifts...8 to 12, 12 to 4, and 4 to 8. Everything occurs after the night goes down because that when the turtles are most active. Friday we had more classes, a snorkeling exercise, and a desert ecology walk. The snorkeling was cool but the desert was was awesome, I guess I am not used to seeing cacti on a daily basis yet.
Anyways more about the turtles, we put two 300 foot gill nets in the water and would check them ever 2 hours during our shift. The nets are light enough, almost like fishing line, that if they do get caught they can easily swim up to the top and breath. When we catch one we pull him or her in the boat and put a life jacket on it so it doesn't scrap up its belly.....yes turtles in life jackets are absolutely adorable....we keep on doing that until our shift is over. Sadly, my shift did not catch one but all together we caught 4 turtles which is pretty darn good. Once the night is over, the next morning we measure their shell length and width, tail length...no one got peed on thankfully...and head width. We then weighed them, took skin samples, and tagged them. It was pretty awesome being able to handle the turtles, they were pretty calm probably because they were so cold but a few people got smacked in the face with a flipper haha. It was just soooo effing neat to see the turtles up close and when we were measuring their tummy width you could see their little chests rise and fall, and when they breath they snort like Beeba. Oh, and my title is so because in the are we were in the juveniles come back to grow until they are about 20 years old, so we were dealing with teenage turtles haha
Sorry this is so long, the turtles were AWESOME and camping was great too!
p.s. Sorry there are no pictures, the internet slash computers are so crappy it takes too long to upload photos. I will as soon as I can cause turtles in life jackets is effing adorable!!!!!!
Love and miss you all,
Katie
Comments
I glad you had such a great experience. We will be happy to see all your pictures whenyou get back. anyway have fun and we love you gr and gr
Katie...sounds really neat! Glad you didnt get slapped tho.....will be anxious to see oyur turtle pics. I sent one of your camping pics off FB to Gm and Gpa and you look awesome!! HUGS!!!