“Knock Three Times on the Ceiling If You Want to Dance….” (Season Final)
“….or twice on the pipe, if the answer is noooooo!” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsSaSyg7mjM)
These and similar tunes (besides Harry Potter 1-5 as audiobooks) have been my travel companion while driving up & down the dirt roads in Costa Rica to get to the different field sides, drop-off samples at the university in the capital, pick-up permits in different offices, and buy equipment.
Hercules (our project car) has been a faithful friend and is marking now more than 7,000 miles more on his mileage counter, and it has been time to pack-up and say good-bye.
After our sampling trip to Rio Oro earlier this month, where we installed six satellite transmitters, we drove back to Ostional to wait for our last (at least for this season) arribada and install the remaining three transmitters. The arribada was expected for September 22nd/23rd (when the moon moves into the last quarter), unfortunately though, we were facing again a waiting limbo. We had a constant stream of about 70 turtles per night, but not enough and not sufficiently synchronized to call it an arribada (100+ is the official definition).
The water right in front the beach was boiling with females floating/sun-basking and breathing waiting for the “whistle to be blown” (we still don’t know which final cue(s) triggers an arribada).
While waiting we started our inventory and started to pack up our equipment in boxes to be stored in Costa Rica. But then more waiting...... we walked up the hill everyday to listen to our females, I coloured my hair by letting some snails crawl over it (after I noticed that they stained my hands pink when picked off the rock to look at them), and other people caught up on their sleep.
After a week with no arribada, the time became short and we had to drop off the last blood samples in San Jose, before the university shut down for the weekend. Also, our CITES import permits were finally issued and we were able to pick up the export permit and other signatures necessary for the import/export of samples of an endangered species listed in the appendix I of CITES.
On our supposed to be quick trip to San Jose our tire got punctured and we had to make an unplanned pit-stop to get it fixed. I am actually surprised that it didn’t happen earlier. To cut a long story short, we still made it in time and were able to accomplish everything we came to do and drove back to Ostional.
We went out the same night still hoping for the arribada to happen………and we got lucky. At 3.30 am waves of turtles started to arrive marking clearly the first HUGE arribada (300,000+ turtles) of the season. We installed a satellite transmitter and started sampling and till 8.30 am we still had a steady stream of turtles on the beach.
Saturday evening, our last night in Ostional, we received our season’s reward with an incredible sunset (it had been raining for most days in the past weeks) and thousands of turtles already leaving the water since 3 pm. It left us all breathless and utterly happy.
During the night we collected our last samples, before packing-up the car with our left over luggage and heading back to San Jose.
I am now sitting in the airplane on my way to the US (Texas) bone-tired, with probably soon-to-be a toe-nail less (it is pretty dead and black already, hundreds of new scratches and stories, and a box full of samples in my luggage and 9 satellite transmitters installed, which will hopefully send me word of my females throughout the next year. I can’t help but to feel accomplished and happy!
(Stay tuned for updates on my tagged turtles!!!!)
I can’t wait to land, pass customs, get into my apartment, and make a trip to the grocery store to fill my very empty fridge, take a HOT shower, and then fall straight into bed, onto my comfy, thick mattress. Adios tortugas, Ciao rice and beans, See Ya foam mattresses, Good-bye Costa Rica, I see you in a few months again!
