Turtle Beach

Here's an old post - in mid-September, the Seids invited us to join them on a trip to see nesting sea turtles. It's never clear exactly what day the turtles will come to the beach to lay their eggs, so we weren't sure we would see anything. Nevertheless, we packed up our tent and two day's supply of food and water, and set off for the Azuero Peninsula, to a beach called Playa Guánico. I carried Gwendolyn, which meant that David carried everything else.

This was our first backpacking trip since Gwendolyn was born, and it was wonderful. Thank you to the Seids for getting us out!

The tricky part of the hike was crossing a large tidal river, only possible at low tide.

Here are the triumphant kids, river crossing accomplished!

We set up camp near the turtle research hut, and ran out to the beach to find...

nesting sea turtles! And this was only the beginning. As night fell, more and more Olive Ridleys waddled their way up the beach to lay their eggs. A long, exhausting process. When the eggs were laid, the turtles would cover the holes and thump down the sand with their legs and bodies. At the height of the laying the whole beach seemed to be shaking. These mass nesting events are called "arribada", and our timing was nearly perfect. The night before, the beach had been covered with thousands of nesting turtles, so the peak was already a bit past but we still saw hundreds. So many it was hard to turn around, there were turtles everywhere.

The eggs looked like large ping pong balls. Many of the females would lay their eggs by the river rather than on the safety of the upper beach, and their eggs would very quickly get washed away. Several of these doomed nests were salvaged by the turtle researchers, and buried in an enclosure to keep them safe from predators until they were ready to hatch. But a huge majority washed back out to sea.
 

 Here is an egg that Gwendolyn found the next day.

During the night, we watched the incredible process of turtle nesting. During the days we explored the coastline.

Around the point, there was a beach that did not have nesting turtles. We spent a lot of the day playing in the black sand and surf, in and out of rain.

Exploring a nearby cave.

And taking long naps in the tent - here her friends Tomara and Sobria are stopping by to see if Gwendolyn had (finally!) woken up.

And then the hike back. A wonderful trip, in great company, so much fun!

  

The Seids later put together this great video, with the video clips they'd taken over the weekend. It's funny, I was about 3 months pregnant when we went on this trip. What a weekend of fecundity and reproduction - quite a portend of our own baby to come!