The Begining

Wow. . where to start. Firstly sorry for any spelling and punctuation mistakes, a combination of my english skills, lack of time and a dodgy key board will surely lead to this. Also I cant get any photos up in the internet cafe I am at at the moment so they will follow shortly.

After a long period of traveling and more so waiting, whilst attempting to sleep at Brussels airport I finally made it to 6.30am and borded my flight. I touched down at the charming open air airport of Boa Vista where I was greeted by a surge of heat which washed away any tiredness and turned it into pure excitment and happiness. I went straight to the bar and sipped a refreshing bottle of orange fanta. I swear its nicer abroad, and in an ice cold glass bottle :)


Following my airport pick up we headed into Sal Rei and went to the Turtle Foundation office to meet the organisers Joanne and Christan. I then got a lift to the campsite that I was assigned to at Locacao a 40 minute drive from proper civilisation.

My initial thoughts as I arrived quickly changed from excitment to ´wow what have I got myself into´ but this was very momentary and just a few nerves kicking in, this combined with the desert, mosquitoes and just being sooo remote for 6 weeks. I met the camp co-ordinator Amanda (an amazing and really kind Brazilian girl) the other vounteers (Carrie from the US and Daniela from Switzerland) and the military guys. Every one was really friendly and welcoming. The camp is smaller than I expected. We have 3 large sleeping tents and a shade and shelter for the kitchen. A shower made from a wheely bin and a tin pot and an undesirable loo made with a small tent and a hole in the sand.

I quickly set about asking how hey have been getting on, how the work is going and general survival techniques. Usually you would not go out on patrol on your first night but I chose to, I really could not wait, plus it was too hot for sleep. The patrol was great, Only got to see one turtle and she had finished nesting but found lots of tracks and learnt alot about what we would be doing. Towards the end we went to one of the other beaches that we patrol(3 in total) Curralito. As we arrived we were welcomed by milions of very unwelcome mosquitoes and as it was my first patrol and soooo hot I was not properly prepard and got fully attacked. They are vicious and can bite straight through a t-shirt. When we got back to the camp I was ready for some well earned sleep zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I awoke to the heat and dragged myself out of the tent and along a 5 minute walk to the beach. The waves are very strong and crash really close to the shore, the swimming conditions are dangerous wih strong rips but if you know me then you´ll know this wont stop me from getting in the sea. As long as you are a little sensible and dont go out to far it is fine and really fun. The morning was mainly taken up with body surfing the waves and then using my body as a solar panel, lyeing in the abrupt heat regaining energy, oh what a hard day. My day to day life goes like this- wake up breakfast coffee swim read walk eat swim games sleep, then it gets to the evening and eat patrol poachers tag turtle help turtle monitor turtle chill sleep. I love it.

My second patrol was hard work (02092010) The shifts range from 4-6 hours and I was on a 12-4am with Cerrie and one of the military guys. To minimise the mosquitoes you have to really dress up and you get seriously hot, drippingly so!! My muscles were still adjusting to long walks on the beach and we did not come across any turtles. On a positive note it tires you out enough to make sleepig in the hot conditions possible. Fuelled with 5 litres of water a day and your feeling fine. I have never felt so healthy, I have not smoked since I arrived, hardly any alcohol, eating fresh and healthy food and going on long walks every day, swimming and sun. I have lost a little weight and am feeling great :)

On the 3rd me and Fogo (one of our soldiers) went fishing from the cliff top. I caught one but chucked it back as it was t small to eat. Fogo caught a moray eel and a couple of decent sized fish which we ate for dinner, you dont get much more fresh than that. That evening the weather became overcast and to my relief the temperaures lowered and the winds picked up which it turn lowered the mosquitoe count :)

The following day was nice and cool (for Boa Vista) and a few us took advantage and went for a walk up on top of the rocky hill above our camp as the sun went down, got some nice shots. The patrol that nite was my best yet!!! I went with Amanda (plus 1 soldier) because it takes a while before you go out with just yourself and a soldier due to training. We came across 3 turtles all of which had not been tagged. Amanda had taught me earlier in the day so this was my turn to step up. I tagged using a Pit Tag which is a microchip that can be scanned to give an ID so that we know if they have already been monitored and nested before. The loggerhead turtles nest up to 5 times in one season and do this one in every three years. I was really lucky for none of them to have already been tagged as it meant I gained the experice quickly and by the third I was very confident. I also got to see 2 of the turtles nesting and laying their eggs, they are so smoothe and delicate with their work, its a great experience to witness. This patrol was really ace, Amanda is one of he nicest people I have ever met. It was a perfect evening.

04092010 Today I woke up really burnt :( I guess clouds are missleading when you are in the desert. . . ouch. Later in the day one of the previous locals, an ex poacher who worked with us turned up following being fired and caused some trouble with one of our soldiers, a fight broke out and tempers were high but this was quickly broken up. What a dick!
Following the previous nights success I was set to lead one of the patrols with the new voluneers Gustavo and Emanuel. There were 5 of us in total including another volunteer and soldier. There was a lot of activity on the beaches, we found a lot of half moons (the name given when the turtle enters the beach but then returns with out nesting- usually due to bad sand conditions or sometimes crazy turtles?? wo knows) there were loads of tracks but we came across no turtles and no poachers.

The following day I was set for my first solo patrol, this I was looking forwards to :) The evening was odd, something in the air. . . at about 6pm before sun down the clearest rainbow appeared, but no rain at first. . . then the sun set was as always amazing but extra amazing. When me and the soldier went on patrol the waves and tide was coming in an extra 30M to usual, apparently this happens rarely, maybe twice a year. so we did patrol barefoot as the beach was like sinking sand. Again as the previous night there was alot of activity and eventaully we came across a turtle that headed along the beach parallel to the water, she knew the sand was not right for nesting but was determined to find somewhere rather than returning to the sea. eventually she got stuck in the sand and was unable to move so me and the soldier lifted her out a little and helped her backdown to the ocean. You dont really want to be doing this usually but she would have been poached or just died if we had not. I really hope no others got stuck after we left. Only 1 out of 1000 hatchlings will make it to the age of 35 and 35 is the age when they are able to reproduce and nest, this is why our work is so important!!!

Walking down the beach in pitchblack darkness is amazing here, following each foot step you get splatters of glimmering light from the plankton on the wet sand, wow!

I awoke early and went for a walk as I was worried bout the nests following the high tides the previous night. As i got to the beach I was shocked and sad to find 20 eggs washed up on a patch of the beach. I opened one up to check what stage the eggs were at; very close to hatching. I got Amanda to come down and we re-burried the other eggs just incase, sadly there is not much hope. I dread to think how many nests we lost that night.

Later that day we had some crazy rain storms, the rainy season is officially here.

Yesterday was my first night off and the storms continued. I was picked up at 4pm and usually it would take 40 minutes to get back to Sal Rei. On your day off you can choose to be taken here, back to civilisation.The journey ended up taking closer to 5 hours. We had to try crossing the desert and many alternative routes as the floods consumed most roads and crossings. We crossed through 2 rivers with caution and saw pickup trucks which had just been washed down with their owners stood on the roof for safety.

The last crossing we had to wait for a few hours as it was way to bad, 3 beers later (mmmm had been a long time coming) I was happy :) and we were on our way again.

Later that evening I was taken to the Turtle Foundations apartment which is over looking the sea, here I was given a real bed and took a real shower. It was lush :P Its funny but it had only been a week or so since my arrival at this point and in some ways it felt like I had been away for months, and in another way as if time had gone very fast. Get your head around that one.

There were three of us staying at the appartment, Ukie who is a really good guy and a top host, he lives in the appartment through out the season. Mark an American volunteer that had just arrived from a neighbouring island and myself. As we arrived Ukie and I agreed we would need or maybe I should say want a bottle or 2 of wine to unwined. We consumed these and decided to go for a quick drink at one of the local bars- as it was ladys night at Unico.

The following day it is fair to say I had a slightly sore head and felt like I had undone the weeks healthyness in a very short ammount of time, this is not the case (really?)
Later that day I had booked a scuba dive at a wreck just off the coast, but sadly following the previous conditions the water was too choppy and visability too poor. I will be rebooking this for my next day off (in 3 weeks :O) The day was spent exploring Sal Rei´s bars, shops and beaches. There are millions of chinese shops that sell pretty much everything. It is really expensive here, somethings just shy of english prices and some way over. This is due to being a desert island, practically everything has to be imported. Fish is really cheap and one of the main sources of food, yummy fresh fish!

Today (10092010) I have had a nice chilled out day, when I got back to the Turtle foundation office I was pleased to see Amanda had turned up, but then switched to feeling a bt gutted as our soldier had just borded the boat back to the military base, I was truely gutted as did not get to say by and get some photos with them. They were really funny guys. The soldiers spend 30 days on the project, 10 days at each camp, they the get replaced by another group after the 30 days are up, I am sure the new group arriving later will be just as cool. Any way that just about brings me up to right now. I did just get a Boa Vista hair cut and had to be quite clear not to bic it straight off as that is the general cut here, the guy was really nice, as are most of the Cape Verdian I have met so far.

Any way I will update again in a couple of weeks. I think my next day off will be quite a while away as I took this one quite early and it turned into 2 days following the floods. Miss you all but at the same time there is not much that could make me want to leave here right now lol. Hope your all well and would love to here what you have been up to and how things are going. Big love Sam