Tales of a Brown-Haired Freak

So I studied, and then I called the taxi driver to double check our 8:00 meet time to head out to see the turtles.

"Uh, yes - didn't I tell you? We're going at 10 instead." "No, we're not. 10 is too late. In that case, we can't go." "Okay, then. My cousin will take you up at 8, and I'll take the rest of the group at 10."

Score! But I'm ahead of myself. You see, it happened like this:

S's fiance is in town for 2 weeks. She wanted to see turtles. I wanted to see turtles. S didn't really care one was or the other, but was willing to come with. I called up taxi man, and he said he had another group of 9 going at 8 and that we could join them. All good, until the mysterious 7pm notice of departure change (it's a 2 hour drive to the beach where the leatherbacks nest, and a friend of our had one last week and said it was better to go early. That combined with the need to meet people at 11am to practice CPD stuff meant that there was no way in christian afterword that we were leaving at 10).

We ended up driving in a car with L, another well-known taxi driver, who regaled us with stories and general info about the island until we got to the beach. The very large, long beach. The very large, long, empty beach. Where were all the people/turtles?

We decided to hike to the other end of the beach where, low and behold, we found a small group consisting of marine biologist, marine biologist trainee, and 2 vet students doing a turtle selective. They seemed confused that we were there (no one had told them we were coming), but pretty cool about the whole thing and patiently spent the next half hour teaching us everything they knew about leatherback turtles (not much, seeing as how they're ridiculously endangered and spend most of their time in deep ocean).

Every half hour or so, the biologists hike to the other end of the beach, checking for turtles laying and if they find any, checking flipper tags. If the turtle picks a bad place to lay (too close to the tide, too much water in the hole, etc), they'll catch the eggs as they're laid and relocate the nest somewhere safer. They also take extreme care not to bother the turtles, so no lights, cameras, or walking into the leatherback's line of sight on pain of being sent away. All in all, it's a pretty civilized event other than the millions of blood sucking insects.

The process itself is fascinating - the turtle will come up on land and wander around for awhile before eventually choosing a spot. She'll then hunker down and push the sand around for while before using her back flippers to dig a hole that's surprisingly narrow and deep considering that she only has flippers to work with. They actually use them like spoons, scooping up the sand and chucking it a distance away, alternating flippers and occasionally resting. It's certainly a better hole than I could dig, at least.

Around 1 - 1:30ish, the other group of people finally arrived, chattering, flashing lights, and being generally irritating to the turtle (not to mention, us) we were watching at the time until the biologist went to tell them to stop, They were also a bit miffed at us for not going with them (apparently it ended up costing them a bit more, but that was hardly our fault) I think they were just cranky about getting there so late. Did I mention that it started to rain within 15 minutes of their arrival?

The rain was the end of it for us - satisfied with the adventure and not wanting to get soaked or listen to inane chatter any longer, we headed back to the car and spent the ride home learning about the rampaging cocaine use on the island.

As far as I can tell, everybody likes sunsets. It's a rare person that doesn't at least glance at the sky around the end of the day and go "...huh." Here, sunsets are a spectator sport - on any given day, a walk up campus around 6pm will elicit the view of a couple dozen students lining up along various fences and benches, waiting for something to happen.

I like sunsets too. Whenever I notice 6pm rolling around (rare, but it happens), I try and make a point of heading out to the point up behind Caribbean house to watch the crabs doing their thing (and the sun too), chat with a fisherman is anyone's there. However, I don't expect anything to happen. In fact, part of why I like sunsets so much is how little fanfare actually occurs. You show up, the sun drops down below the horizon, you leave. It'll happen whether you're there or not; whether you care or not. If you're really lucky, some atmospheric chemistry will yield some pretty colours, but not always. It reminds me of my place in the universe, of how insignificant I really am in the scheme of things. There's something comforting in knowing that no matter what I do, it doesn't matter. Humanity as a whole doesn't matter, and the worst we can do right now is still of less importance to the universe than some crab's decision over whether to go left or right is to me.

Of course, pretty colours are nice too.