Luck of the Irish

After two weeks Jimmy was traded to the South house (the second, smaller location for this project, located near the town). In his place we were given a new Research Assistant: a guy by the name of Emmett. Since this was the first person I've ever met to share a name with one of my personal heroes (Doc Emmett Brown from Back to the Future) I was, perhaps unrealistically, expecting a wild-eyed, crazy-haired scientist, shouting "Great Scott!" and rambling on about the one-point-twenty-one gigawatts he'd need to power his flux capacitor.

Much to my disappointment he was not at all wild-eyed and had never even heard of a flux capacitor (although he did have pretty crazy hair). He was in fact a fairly run-of-the-mill Irish lad, rake-thin and with the standard Irish tan (bright white, with patches of pink). Sporting a pair of red swimming shorts, he was given the honorary title of "Mitch" after David Hasslehoff's alter-ego from Baywatch (though he resembled the Hoff about as much as I resemble Pamela Anderson).

Emmett is of the opinion that the Universe has a personal vendetta against him. After a few days the rest of us began to agree. His first shift was with Glenn and half way through, Emmett came down with a bout of food poisoning. Finding a quiet corner of the beach he (not so quietly) hurled his guts up. Glenn, ever dedicated to the turtle cause, pushed on regardless. The idea of turning back most probably never occurred to him.

The shift continued with Emmett hurling a total of five times. Worst of all, on the way back, the patrol came across a turtle. Diligently Glenn organised the volunteers, collected and relocated the eggs and took the turtle's measurements. All the while Emmett sat on a log, huddled in a ball, rocking gently and cursing every amphibious reptile that ever roamed this God forsaken earth.

After only one night of rest Emmett had his first nest exhumation. With the eggs from the beginning of the season now hatching, one of our new day jobs was to dig up and examine the old nests. During an exhumation, unhatched eggs are split open to find out why they did not hatch. Often this is due to a foul smelling fungus taking hold, or because of maggots. You can imagine the sheer joy of picking through the grey ooze of a half formed turtle fetus in search of maggots and mold; especially for someone recovering from a bout of food poisoning.

According to the rangers, just about everything in the park is able to kill you in under an hour (a snake dropped from the tree near a hammock I was sleeping in, one girl found a deadly scorpion inside her mosquito net, and a hiker in the park was stung by a sting-ray). Add to this that, without refridgeration, no anti-venom can be kept on site, and it's not really surprising that someone with Emmett´s luck had an extreme fear of all that creeped or crawled.

One night, after a late shift, I was enjoying my customary bowl of post-patrol corn flakes (quietly 'borrowed' from the chef's pantry - but that's just between you, me and the rest of the Internet) when Emmett emerged from his room at a fast but controlled pace, body rigid and nearly cross-eyed with the effort of trying to look down at his shirt while at the same time trying to keep his head as far from his body as possible.

As he turned his torch onto himself, I had a momentary glimpse of the abject terror in his eyes before he spotlighted a multi-legged black insect crawling up his chest. "Tell me", he said in a voice that was almost too calm, "is this a poisonous fecking spider do you think?" Informing him that it was in fact quite a harmless grasshopper seemed to lessen his fear not at all so I pulled the little creature from his shirt and let it loose into the night.

Emmett´s luck with insects continued. I gave him some Tiger Balm for his bites and told him I was rubbing it on my forehead to ease a flu I'd picked up (probably from lack of sleep and constant sweating). He gave this a go as well and decided I was an insane man, dangerous to all those around me. Tiger Balm is a mild anesthetic, useful for aches, pains and itches - it's not dissimilar to Deep Heat and has the same burning-freezing sensation, which is perhaps what Emmett took exception too. While Jimmy was there, he and I had numerous discussions about other possible uses for Tiger Balm, and while for my part these conversations were hypothetical, I suspect Jimmy may have partaken in some personal and (hopefully) private experimentation.

One morning Emmett awoke to find that the 98% deet-based insect repellent he'd borrowed the night before had caused his eye to swell up, making him look like Rocky after Round 7. We discovered a small but significant comment on the label: "WARNING: causes temporary but serious eye condition." Emmett´s eye was still swollen when I left him a few days ago.

Aside from Emmett´s entertaining antics (for us anyway, Emmett probably found them less entertaining), our days blurred into one. The heavy humidity and lack of sleep had us a little run down and feeling like we were all suffering from jet lag. Jose, one of the park rangers, broke the daily monotony by taking us out in his boat to the live coral reef. Here we snorkeled with schools of brightly coloured fish, totally unconcerned by our presence. On another day, Jose took us on a hike through the jungle, pointing out all the things that we had passed every day but never noticed. This included several lazy tree sloths that had been hanging near the path, unbeknownst to us for days.

The night patrols continued much as they had with two notable exceptions. The first was a visit from a Hawksbill turtle; properly kicking off the season for these smaller, less prehistoric turtles. For her first visit she laid only ten eggs (apparently fairly normal for a first time Mum at the beginning of the season) and although a paltry sum, these eggs took pole position as our first nest to be relocated to our now finished hatchery.

The second event was a surprise visit from a somewhat wayward Green turtle. Green turtles don´t generally lay at Cahuita and although tracks from this lone turtle had been sighted earlier in the season, we had not previously found a nest. It was with a bit of excitement then that we discovered this Green still on the beach and digging her nest.

Emmettt was leading the team and, anxious not to spook the Green, he hid in the bushes, in the dark with the mosquitoes while she dug her nest. After an excruciating slow hour she abandoned her first location and moved further up the beach. After digging for a further hour, she decided once more that the location was not quite right and tunneled her way under a tree for a third attempt. Finally, after two and a half hours of waiting she began to lay. We decided against bagging her eggs, as the Greens are not quite as tolerant as the slow-witted Leatherbacks. Instead we threw a tape measure in the nest, allowed her to lay and then dug the eggs up again when she had finished.

Emmettt was as excited as a little kid in a lollie shop and all his past trials and tribulations were forgiven and forgotten. After the Green had finished laying we did an inspection and got a real good look at her. Where the Leatherbacks are monstrousrous dinosaurs, the Greens are grace and finesse. The shell of the Leatherback is elongated with ridges that run from head to tail; more like the shell of a beetle than what you'd expect a to see on a turtle. The Green on the other hand, has a near-perfect round shell with a smooth, symmetrical mosaic - the work of a master craftsman (exactly like the pattern on the back of the Ninja Turtles). Even the flippers seem more agile and the head and neck have a graceful, feminine style.

After laying she crawled out of her pit and headed back to the sea. For just a moment she hesitated in the soft red glow of our torches, as we checked for salt excretion from her eyes (healthy turtles permanently cry long, salty tears that glisten in the moonlight - a poignant image for even the most unromantic soul out there), she turned her head slightly in our direction and she gave us what can only be described as a wink. Then, with no sound at all, she skittered her way down to the water's and disappearedared into the dark, warm water.

Each night we checked nests from the beginning of the season. Although we found dozens of baby tracks we never caught sight of the actual babies, hidden as they were by the darkness. We had one hope: a nest from the very beginning of the season had been relocated right next to the hatchery and was due to hatch the day we left. For our entire last night we kept a silent vigil, constantly checking for little, scrambling babies.

The ungrateful little bastards decided to stay buried however and we finished our three weeks there without ever seeing a baby turtle (though for my part I was lucky enough to see one of each of the three turtle species there and really cannot complain). Our last dawn we spent watching the sun rise the Caribbean, drinking sweet, white rum while the waves crashed onto the black sandy shore. Only Emmett broke the serenity, who having not slept all night and just taken his Malaria tablets (which often cause hallucinations) spent the dawn twirling his two torches, one red and one white, like a junkie at a rave.