big ass turtles

[plural]

Been spending my nights
working with leatherback turtles
and my days eating sand (i.e. surfing)
[sorry ashi no photos as of yet]

these buggers weight between
four hundred and five hundred kilograms
and are around 4-6 feet long and
almost as wide.

nights consist of either
patrolling the beach or
working at the hatchery
[generally its three nights]
[patrolling and one in the hatchery]

patrolling consists of walking a up
and down a two mile stretch of beach
[there are two streches of beach we patrol]
[so you get some variety]
for about five hours
when you find a turtles
you record her length, width and
position on the beach
if she is making her nest below
the high tide line you have to catch
her eggs and create a new nest
above the high tide line so
[otherwise the nest gets flooded and all the eggs die]
then you look for the immbedded computer chip
which id's the particular turtle or if they
dont have a chip then we have to implant one

the hatchery consists of waiting around
and watching the nests to see if any of them
have hatched and then colleting the little fellers
which each weigh about 40grams a peice
and measuring their dimensions
and of course recording all that data
then releasing them to swim swim away
into the sea

all in all it is a
pretty amazing experience
to work with them