Heavy Rains, Foam Ghosts, and Two Black Turtles

Our field team for the first three month is complete now. Ashley and Cody (the two international assistants) arrived a few days ago, and Elmar is happy to finally have some English speaking company. 

We have heavy rains in Ostional since almost a week now, and the rivers are running so high, that nobody can come into Ostional or leave. 

We are still working on the hatchery, stiching-up the last holes with sand, which is quite difficult right now, because the sand is wet and heavy and barely passes through the sieves. But we are still advancing.

The patrols at night are also quite an adventure; now we have got four rivers crossing the beach, which get around waist high at high-tide, and if you are not already soaked from the rain and the wind, you will definitely get yourself wet crossing. Since we are close to new moon it is also pretty dark, and everybody is stumbling blindly over the beach, trying to not miss any turtle tracks, while the wind is blowing foam over the beach which look like little ghosts in the pitch dark.

But turtles don't care about rain, and around a week ago we had two unmarked Black turtles nesting, which helped to lighten-up the spirits.

Now we are anticipating already the next sunny days to get some washing done, or to dry our wet clothes at least.

Fortunately we are close to the Costa Rican summer, and this bad weather should only last a few days more, and in two month we probably wish for one rainy day, which will not come.