Blogs from La Tortuga Feliz, Limón, Costa Rica, Central America Caribbean

La Tortuga Feliz, Part II… baby turtles! Or as we learned to call them… tortugitas! Aside from our beach patrol responsibilities, our other duty was to man the hatchery. That meant working 4-hour shifts to keep it guarded 24 hours a day, 7 days a week as well as building the correct nests for incoming eggs at night. Even though I didn't have a lot of turtles that I saw on patrol, I had a lot to do during my hatchery shifts! A few days into my week of volunteering, we received our hatchery training and practiced building the nests into sand. There are 3 types of turtles that nest on the LTF island: leatherback, green and hawksbill. Leatherback turtle season was from March - June, so we were in the beginning of green turtle nesting ... read more

July 6 until July 11 Once again, the week went by fast and uneventful. The major events that happened are as follows: *Saw another poisonous snake, which is like the fifth one I saw since my stay *Went kayaking and saw monkeys, for the first time!! White faced capuchin monkeys. *Trained Erin in exhumations and showed David how to clean the boat. *Did more exhumations. *Saw some more leatherbacks, but no more greens. * Hernon made me this kick ass necklace made out of Caiman teeth!! I love it!! *Worked more on the new hatchery. I am waking up at 4 tomorrow morning because the boat leaves at 5, then heading to Bataan, and then to San Jose!!I fly out on Tuesday.... read more

Independence Day!! I woke up this morning around 4 or 4 30, after I got back from my shift at 3, to this MASSIVE thunderstorm. I was sleeping in the hammock but the huge crackle of thunder jumped me. Literally. Downpour and lightning every 3 seconds. It was not safe to be out there. I ran my ass back into the cabins as fast as my feet could fly. The day flew by again, in a blink of an eye. Had another beach patrol shift tonight.... read more

Because we are low on volunteers, I started the day with a 2am to 8am hatchery shift. It went by VERY SLOWLY!!! No babies, no nests. There is another big storm coming in, I can feel it in the wind. I am doing 2 exhumations today in the afternoon and then walking tonight!!... read more

My 6 am shift was alright. Nothing exciting happened. Came back to the rancho, had the daily meeting, and then worked on building some cages. I then watched the others do the exhumations. Basically what that means is when we have a nest that hatches with a few babies, we wait 5 days for the rest to hatch. If nothing happens within those 5 days, we have to dig that nest up. There were a couple of relocated nests on the beach today and we found one baby that was alive, barely, and the rest were eggs and egg shells. ... read more