Second Night on The Beach

January 08, 2024

We made our way out to the nesting beaches Monday night at 1700 h and set up camp. Dinner was fish (caught the night before by the boat captain Paul) and it was quite good. After dinner everyone relaxed for an hour or so until we organized our first east and west beach surveys. Laura, Zane, Luke and George took the east beaches this time and set out on their 1.5 hour walk. Francis, Nathan and Redly took the west end. Neither of the surveys turned up any tracks and everyone was bavk in camp by 2100 h. We rested for an hour and then made a survey of the western beaches at 2200 h. Francis, Marc, Paul and Redly walked to what we thought was the end of the beaches on the west end but Paul said we should go a little further. Francis and Redly stayed at our normal endpoint and Marc and Paul continued on. After about 100 meeters we both decided that there was nothing more to survey and turned around to head back to camp. On the way back Paul pointed out a recent track - I could hardly make it out and most certainly would have missed it. Paul moved up into the back shore area and I waited out near the beach. Within a minute, Paul was back and excitedly told me that there was a turtle about 40 meters into the bush and asked me to come listen to confirm his observation (we didn't want to use any light for fear of scaring it).. We remained very quiet and listened for maybe 20 secvonds before we both heard the thump of a flipper throwing sand.

We immediately radioed back to camp and asked for the team in camp to bring the "box" as quickly as possible. We wanted the box quickly in case the turtle decided to come down suddenly. Little did we know at the time how ironic that was. To make a long story short, she spent the next six hours in the bush moving around from area to area trying to dig a nest and lay her eggs. The area she was in was full of coral rubble and tree roots making it very difficult for her to dig her egg chanber. All the time we expected her to finish nesting and head back to the sea, We patiently waited while Luke manned the IR binoculars to keep track of her movements. He spent more that 4 hours monitoring her! Laura and Zane were there also helpijng to keep an eye on things but Luke was determined to stick with it.

Finally, she started back to the sea and we were able to "box" her at 0430 h. The entire team worked efficiently to get the sat tag safely and securely attached and the turtle b ack into the water. We were able to het her tagged and released in approximately 1 hour. When released, she moved vigorously down the beach and into the water. And then she was gone!

By then it was daylight and it was time to clean up the area, get back to camp, packup everything and get it into the boat for the trip back to TR. We arrived back at TR around 0700 h and the team unpacked, went to breakfast and then to bed ... it was a long night. Everyone was pretty exhausted but also satisfied that we had been able to deploy another satellite tag in order to study the migratory movement of the critically endangered hawksbill turtles of Moso Island.

Below are a few images of the night's activities:

Setting up the campsite for the second night's work.