Surprise on the Beach!!

Hello All!!
It has been a bit of a whirl wind lately with my last few trips quickly approaching but I have a lot of news to report! This trip I was sent to Awili, a green sand beach just past the southern tip of Hawaii. Going into the trip, Kelly and I were less than excited due to the fact that we have no permanent set up at this particular beach and were more or less going to have to camp directly out of the truck. At most of the beaches we have some sort of shelter that acts as a wind block for cooking and a good escape from the sun or the rain, but we’ve only recently been seeing tracks at Awili so no such shelter has been set up here yet. To top it all off, we were short of some very key supplies such as tents, cots, a tea kettle, chairs, and a spatula (essential for making pancakes ). So we did our best by using a tarp and tying it off the side of our truck which was just enough to shelter us when laying down at night in our sleeping bags. The really windy days we mostly just sat in the truck… let’s just say we were VERY ready to be home after 6 nights in these camping conditions. We also did not have any sort of bathroom set up at this site so we had to bring in a portable toilet. Basically you do your business in a bag and then have to haul it out….almost as interesting as the lua (bathroom) situation at Kamehame with the roaches.

There are some good things to report though! This is a very important fishing beach so we had a few groups of locals coming and going that gave us food. One group had two little boys (5 and 6 years old) that were incredibly cute and called us both auntie (a Hawaiian thing). They came over to our camp at 7 in the morning, juggling 3 tangelos each in their arms to give to us. In exchange for the fruit, they asked me if I would give them a kiss. We must have made an impression because the next morning we were awakened to them again, this time with an entire bag of tangelos, probably 20 or more. Of course they wanted a second kiss ;). On their way out they gave us pictures that they had drawn of us with the turtles…so cute!!

This particular beach has been a tricky one this season because we have been missing the mama turtle and only seeing her tracks in the morning. Because of this we have about 4 possible nests and only 1 confirmed so we were watching for hatchlings, but not entirely sure if they are there or not. A mama was finally spotted and nested a few days before we got there and so it was assumed that she had been the one making all of the tracks. Little did we know what we would find one morning on our 6am check! I happened to wake up one morning 15 minutes early and as I got up to watch the sunrise, I saw something very small moving in the distance. Sure enough it was a turtle!! Normally they are back to the water before the sun rises so this seemed very unusual, but not completely unheard of. I rushed back to camp to wake up Kelly and just had enough time to yell, “Kelly! Turtle on the beach, get the bag and phone, we can’t let her escape!” Poor Kelly was half asleep still and the zipper was stuck on her sleeping bag but I didn’t want it to get back to the ocean without us checking her tags so I left her there struggling. She eventually made it out….When we got close to the turtle we could see that she was already nesting and that she did not have tags which meant that she was a new mama!!!
eight: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_FeJpPf7zllE/TOtf3F7GxUI/AAAAAAAAAFU/Once she was finished laying, we restrained and measured her, tagged her front two flippers and took lots of pictures for documentation purposes. The nest was in a bad spot (in the reach of the tide and under a cliff) so we had to do a translocation, my second one of the season!!!
Most people don’t even get to do one so I felt incredibly lucky. We dug up her nest carefully and made a new nest cavity in a safer place and then reburied the eggs. Feeling very proud of our work as surrogate mama turtles we napped the rest of the day.


The really interesting part of this story is that this turtle was not a Hawksbill, but in fact an Olive Ridley. This is an extremely rare occurrence as most Ridley’s exhibit massive group nesting behavior and only 2 or 3 cases of an Olive Ridley coming up on Hawaii land have ever been documented. So it was a very exciting yet chaotic day in the office as everyone was scrambling around trying to get things in order. Pretty crazy stuff in turtle world!
Lots of excitement and only 2 trips left before I return to the mainland. One more very exciting thing I should mention is that we saw flowing lava!! On my last time off we got to go with a few people that live on the island out to the place where the lava actually flows into the sea. It was incredible. It is currently flowing right now and we literally got within 30 feet of the lava and saw in bubbling and falling into the ocean.
It is a bit dangerous walking out to it though because we went at night and you have to feel how close you can get by how hot your shoes get on the lava that you walk over! If they get too hot, or it starts to crumble it’s a good idea to stop walking…This was hands down the most intense thing that I have ever seen.
Well hopefully you all enjoyed the photos, there should be more posted on Facebook and I hope things are going well at home! I should also be getting some videos up soon of lava and hatchlings and my dad doing the hula (heheh). Talk to you all soon!


Amy

Helicopters and Lobsters

Aloha again! 10/29/10


Things have been a little hectic the last couple of weeks and there’s quite a bit to tell! I guess we’ll just start with the last backcountry trip two weeks ago…
This time they had us stay in the field for 7 nights instead of 6. It is amazing how long that last day feels when you’re used to getting out in 6!! We did have a few exciting things happen this time though. First of all I got to experience my first Heli-Op. Since these sights are so remote, they have to helicopter in supplies when we start to get low (water, CO2, propane). The helicopter pilot on the island is extremely skilled as he often has to land on very rough lava terrain and it was so cool to watch him fly in a load of supplies and then just plop down on jagged lava like it was nobodies business . We also had a little surprise of cold Gatorades in one of the bags that he dropped down for us! Felt a little like we just won a challenge on survivor…we savored those! We also got to try out a little surfing (without much success) because we found surf boards that locals had stashed in a cave at Halape. We knew that they were somewhere because locals stash a lot of things in the lava (there’s a guitar somewhere…) but it took us a good couple of hours of searching to finally find them! This trip we also had another excavation of a nest, this time without such a great outcome. The total success rate of the nest was 7.4%.....not so great. It was mostly fried eggs from sun exposure or just a gooey mess. REALLY stinky. It was a very sad nest, but we were able to save a few. In fact we kept one hatchling in a pot of sand and slept next to him all night so that we could release him at a good time in the morning (we didn’t want anything to dig him up at night).
So after the long trip we were very excited to finally have our 3 nights off…and then one other girl and I got sent into the field for another night…It was actually our choice because we wanted to see the nest that we had personally translocated at the beginning of the season hatching, but it did make for a very short break and not much time to revamp. So then when we did finally get our break we only had one full day off and then went back into Kamehame. We were a little exhausted but still had a great trip at Kamehame! That’s where our nest is located and we got to translocate it which ended up with about 42% success (not great but I’ve clearly seen worse!). Unfortunately when we got to it most of the live hatchlings had already made it out so we got to sort through the goo again, which was a little depressing, but we did get to release maybe 20 or so live hatchlings.

We had very high winds this time which made beach checks till 2am slightly miserable, but overall it was another great trip with some wonderful sunrises! And we met more local fisherman (I seem to be at the beaches at the right times). They actually stayed and fished for 2 whole days (fishing straight through the night) and around 1 am on the second night they came over with a bucket and asked if we had any coffee. There seemed to something alive in the bucket and when we gave them some coffee they handed us the bucket as a trade and there was a giant live blue lobster inside. We were pretty excited, but quickly realized that we had not idea what to do with this lobster aside from releasing him back into the ocean. They offered to kill him for us which they did in a very disturbing way (using the antennae to pull out the gut sac???) and after Jenna and I were thoroughly traumatized they threw it in a pot to boil and left to continue fishing. We ate it for breakfast the nest morning.


Another very entertaining couple of trips! The break this time has also been great, although its getting very cold and rainy in the park with the fall and winter approaching. Today we’re just getting ready to go into the backcountry again, this will most likely be our last trip of the season there because the nests are almost done. Well, that’s all I can think of for now. I hope that you are all enjoying the fall and baking lots of great fall foods! Have a wonderful Halloween and I hope to hear from you all soon!!!
Amy

More Hatchlings and Fish

Aloha!
Back at housing and time for another update (I know you’ve all been waiting on the edge of your seats ). This past trip was wonderful!! I was back at Pohue and got to excavate my first nest! We do an excavation after the nest has either surpassed its hatching window or has been hatching and stopped for a couple of days. This is to verify the percentage of hatchlings that survived by counting undeveloped eggs, dead hatchlings and egg shells left in the nest. I guess it can be quite disgusting digging it up if there are a lot of dead or decaying hatchlings (I’ll skip the details) but we got very lucky because we found a lot of live hatchlings! These particular hatchlings needed assistance getting out of the nest due to roots and rocks that were most likely inhibiting their emergence so it was a very good thing that we dug it up when we did. While doing an excavation you want to very slowly uncover the nest one shallow scoop of sand at a time so it took us a couple of hours. If there is any movement in the nest you stop and wait for the hatchlings to come out on their own and then let them imprint on the sand for a while before collecting them in a bucket and releasing them all into the ocean at the same time (safety in numbers). Total we found 110 hatchlings!!! It was probably one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen when we released them and 110 tiny hatchlings made their way to the ocean by moonlight. It’s incredible that they just know exactly where to go. Our total next success was somewhere around 65% which is actually really good. We did have one that was too underdeveloped to release and so we reburied him and dug him up two days later, not really expecting him to make it, but he looked great and had a fighting spirit! We named him Brave Heart and sent him out into the world .

Other than that we didn’t have any new mamas but we did get more fish from locals! These Hawaiians are seriously great! The owner of the property even brought us down some left over fried chicken one day and Gatorades! The fish was quite a process however because when we got them before, the locals had already fried them up. This time we received them alive and flopping around….after staring in the bucket for a while and examining the tools that we had to work with (a small propane stove, one pan and a slightly rusty steak knife) we made our plan of attack. It took us 2 and ½ hours but we eventually figured out a few things.

1. These fish are too small and difficult to fillet with a steak knife
2. You can’t eat through the scales
3. Don’t try to fry a fish before de-gutting
4. Don’t pierce the intestines

Out of 9 fish we managed to fry up 4 correctly and they were the best 4 fish I’ve ever tasted (probably just because we were so proud of ourselves by the end of it all).

We were feeling so good that we even decided to gather some opehe (sp?), kind of like a mussel, from the rocks and boil them. This was a bad idea because they were extremely chewy and made us all feel quite sick. Still working on that one.
Overall another great and successful trip, the weather is still beautiful everyday and we slept on the beach under the stars every night. Hopefully you are all still doing well and enjoying the fall (I do miss the changing leaves). Miss you, write if you get a chance.

Amy
P.S. If you want to see a video of the hatchlings check out facebook!!! Hopefully I'll have it uploaded

A beautiful brackish crack that we found. It is huge and about 20 ft deep.