Thunderstorms, Sunsets and Turtles

The rainy season has arrived and wow do we have thunder and lightening! The noise reverberates between the condo buildings whilst the lightening illuminates our beaches in short bursts.The rain blows in off the Gulf or from the mainland, so we can get it from either direction. See the rain in this picture? It is extremely humid this year too.  The thunder continues to rumble and grumble through most of Sunday.                                                                                 

see indentation after the rain - the 'drop'

Last night we did evening turtle nest checking for a second turtle monitoring group here on our beaches. We checked 'at risk' nests that might be affected by humans and artificial lighting.  We found a "drop" in the sand after our 8:30 pm check, at our 10:45 check, so hoped for hatchlings. They might have already gotten away so we gave up after midnight, having only found one lone straggler further down the beach (which we recsued from some well meaning tourists with white cell phone lights).  I got to bed about 1am. Since we usually create curiosity with our turtle tracker T-shirts at least we got to educate a few beach goers on the do's and don'ts during turtle season. What one will do for a turtle!

                                                                                     

With so many storms, mini me awoke at 2:15 am and looked out from her balcony only to see a sheriff patrolling in his SUV complete with search lights (looking for people sleeping on the beach I suspect).  The sheriff inadvertently found a mother turtle, just making her way up the beach under the cover of darkness. Before he knew it he drove right alongside her with his bright headlights illuminating her for me to see. Thrilling, but sadly those same lights appear to have spooked her.  We had a downpour at 4 - 5 am so by morning the tracks are much less distinct - there appears to be no nest, so this is what we call a false crawl (look to left of the tire tracks ... but hard to see!).

Last Friday (21st), on morning patrol we found 3 live hatchlings amongst the nest remains. The State of Florida has us inventory the nests a few days after hatching and every so often we come across hatchlings that didn't make it out for one reason or another. This one was strong enough to be released immediately and you can see it swim into the sea on this video below

quicker, but harder on the
fingers than quilting!

When not turtling, am trying out all sorts of new activities; the jokes about basket making are unfair and all baskets are still handmade! This is a reed basket (vs wicker I did in the UK) and requires constant wetting; not bad on a hot day in Florida.

And just for Annie, it can be lovely after the rain --