Friends with Fishhooks, The Italian Father Christmas, and a Final Turtle Farewell from Serra Negra

Some of the most fantastic chance meetings we are given in life happen when we think we are otherwise quite remote. My final stint out at the Serra Negra base camp this season was absolutely one of these experiences.

The camp at Serra Negra feels – depending on the Ranger’s current disposition on work and life – like perfect escape or abject exile. Either way, it’s out there. For the past three months, teams of rangers have rotated turns out at the camp – four days on and eight days off – living on the beach under the brilliant night sky, away from running water, electricity, and the morning sounds of construction in Santa Maria. The roads to Serra Negra are rutted and unpaved, studded with chunks of volcanic stone and riddled with gullies. It’s not easy to get out there, and usually the shift on Serra Negra is passed without outside human contact excepting the occasional glimpse of an early morning fisherman who has made the trek across Martian-like wasteland to the rocky coast. But life is full of anomalies.

I arrived on a Thursday afternoon, along with Suzy, Cedric, and Sophie – my team for the next four days – stepping out of the dusty truck into blaring sunshine reflecting off the slick black basalt rocks that carve out each curve of beach at the base of the serra. We settled in for the days ahead: stocking up the canned food stores, lathering on sunscreen, and immediately losing track of our shoes. I expected a quiet four days, reading a mediocre crime novel I’d picked up off the ‘free exchange’ shelf in the hostel and lounging in the African sun. Whether some travel agency has recently discovered the reserve or the sort of people travelling in the month of October are inherently more adventurous, I don’t know, but what followed was instead a proper parade of people out to Serra Negra. I almost felt like I needed to throw on a Ranger polo and stand at the head of the road to greet visitors like a National Park Service employee. We had several tours of people on quads or in big, open jeeps, and one fishing tour. Fortunately we didn’t have to chase any of their vehicles off the nesting beach, and instead we were afforded an odd opportunity to talk about the project and what the hell we were doing in a tent out there. Several of the tourists – with their oversized cameras and all-inclusive hotel wristbands – were shocked to discover that we were actually staying there. Oh ye air-conditioned, name-brand shampoo, chocolates on your fluffy pillows people. You just don’t know what you’re missing. It was hilarious to watch their reactions, especially when we disclosed that we share our “kitchen” with two mice and a rat.

But our coolest visitors to the camp were an Italian named Stefano – who turned out to be the Father Christmas of Sal – and a Cabo Verdean fisherman named Tony with his own name tattooed to his bicep. It ended up being a proper party at the camp. Stefano was on the island for business, but had grown restless in his hotel room and had rented a quad to explore, ending up at the dead end of the dirt road that led to our beach. The irony of his fascination with the natural environment and his self-started company that sells disposable plastic dishware did not escape me. But he was an incredibly friendly and chill guy, and after meeting us and joining us for a cup of camp coffee the first afternoon, returned again Saturday with gifts in hand. He brought several bags of crisps, two packages of chocolate chip cookies, four fresh fish that he had caught while spear fishing off Mount Leon, charcoal, fire starters, napkins, and cigarettes. In our world of cheap pasta and tin peas and carrots, we were elated at the showering of kindness. We happily popped open the small barbeque and cooked up the fish for lunch. We were joined by Tony and his friend (whose name I never learned). We had also met them the day before, when Sophie had wandered off along the rocks to explore and had encountered Tony as he was fishing and had inquired as to how we could acquire some of his catch. He had followed her back to camp with a bucket of fish and sold us several large (and tasty) ones for a couple of euros, then had furnished us with a hook and sinker for the fishing line that we had in the camp, so that we could catch some of our own. His friend followed shortly with a crate full of deep purple urchins he had been collecting, and joined our growing party. They joined us for the cup of coffee along with Stefano, and we all sat around the homemade table and had the most incredible and broken conversation I have ever enjoyed. It jumped back and forth between five languages, with only three or four of the group understanding what was being said at any given time, but everyone laughing about the attempt. Tony and his friend spoke Criole, but mixed in as many of the Portuguese words they knew to Cedric and me – who speak Spanish and can therefore more or less understand Portuguese. We would then roughly translate to the others, me in English to Suzy and Stefano, the latter of which who would attempt to respond to Tony in an odd mix of Italian and Portuguese; and Cedric would turn to Sophie and continue in French. It was hilarious. We talked about travel and fishing and plastic cups (I think), drinking our instant joe and eating the blackened fish, dusted with garlic powder and oregano (the pronunciation of which is still hotly debated). It was an odd arena for an internationally social gathering, but for that reason, utterly excellent.

The final camp episode was also well complimented with a fair dose of turtle activity, and I was delighted to get in a few last nights with nesting loggerhead turtles. On our first patrol out, we got to see three turtles. The first popped out of the water right next to where Suzy and I had sat down to take a short break. She nested there and laid two of the strangest eggs we have ever seen. We had to relocate her nest, and as we were digging it up we found one tiny egg, the same size as a marble, and one freak large egg with a tumour-like lump to one side giving it a teardrop shape (turtle eggs are normally the same size and shape as a ping pong ball). Shortly after, we had another turtle further down the beach towards camp, so I jogged back to the tent and woke up Cedric and Sophie to come and see. It was Sophie’s first week, and she had never seen an adult turtle before. We had worried she might not see any, as the season was winding down, so she was not bothered to wake up a bit before their 2am shift began to come and see the nesting mama turtle. It was an amazing experience, seeing the novel wonder on her face, as we haven’t had much of it in the second half of the season with most of us having been here for a couple of months by now. It was a good thing we got them up early, because they didn’t see any turtles on their late shift that night.

The next night, however, each shift got to see another turtle. The one Suzy and I stumbled across on Red Rock beach was massive. Her carapace alone was 98cm long, and she had the biggest head I have ever seen on a turtle – even on a loggerhead. She had finished nesting by the time we found her, so we just got to enjoy watching her camouflage the nest under the silver light of the near-full moon. The summer has been long and hot, with a lot of tough work and some lessons hard-earned, but I have not yet tired of watching these amazing dinosaurs in these rare moments when they emerge from the great ocean abyss to take part in an eons-old ritual of passing on life. We got to excavate two hatched nests as well – going into the nest after the majority of the hatchlings have already emerged on their own to give those that were on the bottom of the ladder a bit of extra assistance. We pulled out nine straggler baby turtles and set them on their way. We let each tiny turtle go into the glow of the morning light, marvelling still at the awkward but precious walk they make from the sands where they are born into the expanse of sea their lives are designed to explore.

I am thankful for the remarkable and auspicious final spell out at the Serra Negra camp. We will be breaking down the camp at the end of this week, wrapping up the season and finally acknowledging that our work here is drawing to a close for the time. If my life continues to be a string of living nature documentary experiences, I will happily die of exhaustion rather than boredom. As when watching the toucans dancing through the branches of broad-leaved trees and vines in the Argentinean forest last year, my run-ins here with the sea turtles has been an outstanding experience that even David Attenborough would be envious of. Farewell Serra Negra.

Here, Fishy, Fishy

October 4

October burns here as hot and humid on the island of Sal as any of the summer months. It makes it even harder to believe that I have already reached my final few weeks here in Cabo Verde. As with any place I am fortunate enough to visit, I am trying to fit a last few extraordinary experiences in before I leave Cape Verde. It is arguable that one of the excursions one should undertake while in such an island nation is to jump into one of the traditional, painted wooden boats that bob in the beautifully clear Santa Maria bay – and go fishin’.

So I did just that, today, as it was my one day off in the week. I started the morning with my customary breakfast, banana pancakes with maple bacon and a cup of coffee, at my favourite place on the island – Papaia. I woke up particularly early in anticipation of the fishing trip, so I got to watch the last of the sunrise as I sat on the outdoor deck, wallowing in the last breath of cool air that the day would afford. It was a fantastically beautiful day, one with the rare clarity of sky that affords a view of the island of Boa Vista, twenty-two miles to the West. Beneath purple and white cotton balls of clouds, the jagged mountainous silhouette was visible across the sparkling, aquamarine waters of the sea. I watched purple martins swoop through the air above the deck, catching grasshoppers and riding the cool morning updrafts. A small school of tiny, vibrantly-striped reef fish floated lazily around in the water below the deck, only to scatter suddenly when a big, long, bizarre fish with blue and green spots and a long, trumpet-like nose came poking his way over the rocks and sand. A good omen for a day of fishing ahead. I paid Sarah at the counter and headed across the white sand beach to the pier, where I met with Nathan – an avid fisherman, looking to make up for not having caught anything while aboard the Kafeoli a couple of weeks before. We wandered out onto the pier – bustling as ever with fishmongers, ropes, nets, sassy women shaking their filet knives as they haggled over prices per kilo, and the glistening of scales. There we met Fernando, a Sal native who has dabbled in a number of different trades over his forty years, always looking to be outdoors on the next adventure, usually with wide-eyed tourists in tow. He had been accurately referred to me by a friend that lives on the island, and he was full of incredible stories about life around the island. We clamoured down a slippery wet ladder and into his peeling wooden boat. The bright orange rope keeping the bobbing craft secured to the pier was tossed down to us, and with a little persuasion the motor was started up and we wove in between the many other fishing boats – busily coming and going in the morning light – out into the clear bay.

Fernando told us of a time when he took a couple of German tourists fishing, and they had come across some local fisherman hauling turtles illegally out of the water. The Germans had begged Fernando to protest. Cautious of defying what he understood to be cultural norms (albeit illegal ones) Fernando offered up the money he had set aside for their lunch – fifty euros – in exchange for the turtle. The fishermen huffily agreed, and traded the turtle for the money, upon which Fernando loaded the turtle up into his car, drove down to the police station in the capital, Espargos, and asked a policeman who was also a friend to help him get his money back, the turtle in the back of his car as evidence and the Germans as witnesses. The policeman went down with Fernando and forced the angry fishermen to pay Fernando back. Nervous that he had made enemies in his own home, Fernando went ahead and put the turtle back into the sea. Later that afternoon while scuba diving with another group of tourists, the same turtle swam right up to Fernando, looked him square in the face, and then disappeared off into the eternal blue.

Fernando has a turtle tattooed to his right shoulder to put into other expression the thanks the turtle gave him that day.

We continued out into the bay at a leisurely pace across the calm surface of the sunny sea, heading parallel to the buildings of Santa Maria. It was a perfect day for fishing. Fernando pulled out two fishing rods and put them together in the same fashion as tent poles before tying two hooks and a homemade lead weight on to the line of each. He pulled small, silver bait fish out of a frozen ball from a plastic bag, and cutting off the tails, hooked two bits of bait onto the hooks. We dropped them into the water, letting the weight hit the bottom of the shallow bay and then waiting for the hit. The first spot we tried yielded nothing in the first ten minutes, and a fidgety Fernando quickly had us move on.

We soon found out why he had been so quick to judge the first spot unsuitable. Almost as soon as we three dropped lines in at a second chosen location, the fish were jumping at them. Fernando pulled in the first fish of the day – a small garopa, apparently the tastiest catch in the waters around, and one of the most beautiful fish I have ever seen. They are a crimson red, dappled with light blue spots and wide, fan-like fins that are reminiscent of beta fish. Nate had the next fish, a small reef fish with wide black bands and hints of yellow in between. I caught the third in rapid succession, a tiny bika fish, too small to keep but a happy start to a successful day. In the end, I would be the one to catch not only the largest fish of the day, but the most. Who said women are bad luck on ships.

We would fish in a spot until the schools passed through and stopped biting, than we would putter over to another, looking always for spots where the lighter blue water became darker, signifying rocks, reefs, and holes where the fish preferred to congregate. We caught mostly bika, a small orangish fish with sharp spines down its back that is apparently quite tasty when cooked in oil with rice and piri piri. Sometimes we would get two at once, one on each hook on the reel. The largest fish of the day was another black striped one, like the first fish Nate had caught, except that I got to be the lucky one to reel it in. There were a few holes where we had only to toss the line to the bottom and start reeling, and we would immediately hook a fish. Images come to mind of Burt and Ernie sitting in a similar wooden boat while Ernie calles in a sing-song voice “Here, fishy fishy” and giggles his particular laugh as fish came jumping freely into the boat. We soon had a basket half-full of fish resting between my legs. We jumped into the gloriously-colored water a couple of times to cool off. I had a bika slip out of my hands at one point while I was pulling it off the hook, and with a hilariously satisfying thwack it smacked into Nathan. In the last spot we stopped – a favourite of Fernando and one he had obviously been keeping for last to end on a good note – I ended up catching two of the coveted garopa myself, and even caught one on one hook while snaring a bika on the second hook.

By the time we pulled back to the pier around noon, we had a couple dozen fish and an utterly satisfying morning. We gave a man a handful of fish and 1 euro to scale and clean our catch for us. It was pretty impressive to watch how fast the men on the pier can clean a bucket full of fish. Nearby, massive yellowfin tuna, marlin, and a black-tipped reef shark were also being cut up and cleaned. I’m not sure how I feel about the fishing of these species, as they are short in numbers – especially the shark – but as with the turtles, it is difficult to expect an island nation that has always lived off the bounty of the sea to understand that they must change their traditional, small-scale way of life because a bunch of commercial entities with no consideration in oceans far away have devastated the marine animal populations to such an extent that the effects are penetrating the waters even of the much-isolated Cabo Verde. It was difficult to watch, and impossible to judge.

Once the man had finished with our small pile of fish, Fernando took home those he had caught, and Nate and I happily put our share in a bag. We grabbed a celebratory ice cream on the way home. I’m quite looking forward to asking Fredy – the Cape Verdean volunteer in Turtle House – for the best recipes for cooking each type of fish.

Even as I sit here writing, I am still rocking and swaying in time to the waves.

Ready, Set, Waddle

October 3

As the nesting season is drawing to a (slow) close and the Turtle Tours have ended, we have begun to supplement our outreach activities with events centred around the heart-warming turtle babies that are emerging almost daily at the SOS hatchery. Their big eyes and frantically-waving tiny flippers are enough to sucker anyone into loving sea turtles, and they are a great vessel for helping our organization to generate interest and support for the conservation effort. In other words, no one can just walk right by a precious baby turtle. We have started hosting public hatchling releases from the beach just down by the hatchery, where guests who are willing to make a small donation to the cause can hold and release their very own baby turtle, taking part in setting them on the first steps of their epic journey. We can only do a few of these public releases, as it is hazardous to the babies to put too many hatchlings into the same place along the beach too often, as the fish and crabs would eventually learn where to just wait for the turtle buffet. Therefore, these events are something rather remarkable for those that visit the island – and they never cease to captivate us volunteers either, no matter how many hundreds of hatchlings we have already seen.

It is a bit of a difficult affair, the public release, as we of course have to prioritize the safety of the baby turtles in the hands of two dozen eager tourists. We pass out tickets to keep track of the volume of participants, take them all through a quick how-to briefing (in up to five languages), have them all wash their hands in buckets of sea water, and line them up (“Camera flashes off please!”) at the high-water mark, where they are allowed to go no further, each with a waving baby turtle in hand. It is always incredible – the width of the grins on their faces, the sight of thirty-plus, sunburnt tourists gaping wide-eyed at the miracle of nature in their palms. Tonight’s release was exceptionally fantastic, as it was set against the backdrop of one of the most awesome sunsets I have ever seen, each stunning colour magnified in the great pallet of sky that stretched endlessly in great expanse above the ocean, unfettered and un-obscured by any tree, building, wire, or crane of any kind. It was just the chaste beauty of mother nature on broad display, and I am not sure any words or photos would do it justice, but I have tried to attempt it with both.

On the count of three, each of our guests sets their energetic turtle baby onto the damp sand and cheers happily as dozens of hatchlings scurry towards the welcoming sea. Racing and betting are encouraged.

The little turtle babies glowed silver in the soft light of the magnificent sunset, silhouetted against the pink, grey-blue, and diluted orange of the endless sky reflecting on the shimmering expanse of sand beneath them. Gentle foam waves reached out like motherly hands to lift each tiny hatchling into the shimmering waters beyond, while majestic thunderheads towered above in strange and awesome shapes. Within the grandest, central tower of cloud – centred over the giant glowing orange globe of the low hanging sun – purple and white streaks of lightning crackled in electric veins across the expanse of the darkening mist at the heart of the cloud. Rising over the peak of this thunderhead was a crescent moon, like a crown jewel over the panorama painting.

And then they were gone. Misty grey streaks of rain fell like a soft curtain between giant clouds thousands of feet above us and the evening settled into darkness around us. We headed back to our truck, walking backwards through the sand to continue watching the lightning show above us. I mark that afternoon as easily one of the most remarkable of my experiences here.

Explosions at the Hatchery

September 19

Most people can attest to the fact that, no matter how much preparation goes into an operation, at some point things will go wrong. Occasionally, the consequences that follow are unfortunate, other times exhilarating – and when turtles are involved, both.

Anticipating a nest due to hatch in the evening, I took my regular group of tourists on our Turtle Walk excursion on a bit of special detour down the beach to our hatchery. I had stuck my fingers into the tell-tale dip in the nest earlier that afternoon while out fundraising, and had felt a few delicate, wiggly bodies of baby turtles just a few inches below the surface, making the final legs of their two or three day journey out of the eggs and up to the top sand. Knowing they should be out of the nest by the time the nightly tour began, I figured on a pleasant surprise for my guests.

When we arrived at the hatchery, I climbed in, expecting to see a scurrying bundle of eager little hatchlings crowding against the walls of the wire cages we place over the tops of those nests that are near due. It was a bit to my disappointment and confusion to find only two small hatchlings, wedged awkwardly partially beneath the flat wire base of the cage, which is supposed to be thoroughly buried so as to keep the little guys in. That’s when I noticed the tracks. Dozens and dozens of tracks. All over the hatchery!

The babies had escaped!

Someone had done a shoddy job covering the nest with the cage, and a hatchling-sized gap between the base of the cage and the surface sand had allowed more than seventy tiny little turtles loose all over the hatchery. It was a turtle explosion!

On the one hand, it was an embarrassing disaster. The stray dogs that are so well fed by the blissfully ignorant tourists at the hotel next to the hatchery have come to associate the area with food, and they have been a plague upon our hatching nests. They had gotten in and, finding an abundance of rubbery little wind-up toys at their disposal, had horribly mutilated a handful of the baby turtles as they played with and tossed them about. I found about twenty of the little guys dead around the hatchery, their flippers gnawed off, their precious little bodies limp and riddled with teeth marks. It was horrible. I did my best to subtly collect those unfortunate turtles up into a bucket and keep them out of sight from the tourists. However, you always get a few astute, clever folks in the group, and it was unavoidable that some were spotted. Still, perhaps it was a good opportunity to promote not feeding the dogs near the turtle hatchery.

Because on the other hand, the tourists were having a blast. I sent them running around the hatchery with buckets like kids on an Easter egg hunt, using the white lights on their phones to draw the dozens of (live) stray baby turtles towards them. They tip-toed around between the nests, happily shouting, “Here’s another one, Holley!” each time they discovered a tiny turtle on the run. They happily helped me to collect seventy eight little hatchlings. It was, in the end, an ultimate victory, since any of the nests that we have moved to the hatchery would have been completely lost if left in situ (where the mother laid them) due to any number of factors, so any surviving hatchlings we get out of any nests is a win for us, as they would have been entirely compromised otherwise. So collecting seventy eight baby turtles – set free in the gentle dark on a beach further up north later that night with the tour – was a joyous occasion, and something I hope my tourists will remember for the rest of their lives, spreading the word about how awesome sea turtles are.

We spent several hours the next day fixing all the rest of the hatchery cages.

Blood Trails and Record Breaking

September 12

What a roller coaster day for turtle stories.

First the big drop at the beginning of the ride, the one that always sends your stomach plummeting. Found another poached turtle on a nesting beach we call Fridge, on the West Coast. She was freshly butchered, a fly-ridden and sticky trail of blood and guts scattered around where they had attempted to bury her head and carapace in the sand. Cedric and I discovered the body while on Morning Patrol. It started with a long, thick drag mark in the sand, much like the one I had found almost a month ago while on tour with a group of Germans. This one was different though – the hunters had tried to hide their tracks, and it took a bit of CSI-style investigation to eventually discover the crime scene. (I credit – or blame – my sister for the dorky reference).

To start with, the hunters had attempted to hide the turtle’s track up from the water’s edge. They had dragged a big, heavy piece of commercial ship rope up over the trail and dumped the rope at the top, effectively making it look like some kind soul had simply intended to move the rubbish off the beach. Unfortunately for the poachers, I am neither stupid nor unobservant. They had probably been less-than-sober, or at least incapable of walking straight lines, because the drag mark of the rope did not come straight up the turtle track, and in the curves of the rope mark, I could still see the up-track of the turtle underneath. An up-track with no down-track is bad.

Second, the hunters had gone to the trouble of picking up and carrying the heavy mother turtle a distance, so as not to leave a drag mark on the lower part of the beach where it would be easily noticed in the harder, wetter sand.

But carrying a 120 kilo turtle leaves pretty heavy footprints. We know the difference.

I followed the unusually deep footprints further up into the soft sand of the dunes, and there, sure enough, was the blatant, distinct drag mark of a turtle that had been carried off. I remember running up the track. Even though it was 8am already, and the odds of finding the turtle stressed out but alive at the top of the track were greatly diminished by now, I still had to run – out of adrenaline, anticipation, anger, I don’t really know. The drag mark ended in blood-soaked brush growing low on a dune almost completely at the back of the beach. There were turtle insides strewn about, and un-laid eggs that had been later picked clean by crabs. They hadn’t even let her nest first before taking her.

They had also tried burying the body, but turtles are no small trinket to hide in the sand. It was obvious where they had stuffed her. It was horrendous having to dig into the freshly-turned up sand, feeling her carapace below my fingers and knowing she was gone. We brushed the sand away from what was left of her carapace, plastron, and head. Then Cedric found her severed flippers tossed into the bushes. She had tags. They were from the organization on Boa Vista – Natura 2000. That turtle had possessed an identity, probably a name. Janice even found a knife they had used, complete with a perfect, bloody fingerprint on the handle. The police were called. They came out. Then they did nothing.

In the first year, when Jacquie and Neal were starting to get things together to found SOS Tartarugas, more than 90 turtles were known to have been killed. Their empty carapaces used to litter the beaches here. This year, we have only lost six that we know about. Even though we can celebrate the victory of this massive decline in illegal hunting, it’s never exactly joyous to find another dead turtle. It was particularly frustrating because I was supposed to have been on patrol that night, but my partner – a volunteer from the community and not someone living in Turtle House – had never shown up, and since we are not allowed to patrol alone (for obvious reasons), no one had been out on the beach after 1am that night. One could still argue that they may have taken her anyway. The beach we patrol on the West Coast is 5km long, and it is entirely feasible that they may have grabbed her from one end while they knew we were on the other. But a part of you just feels like you will never know.

Still, that night, the turtle gods decided to recompense, and I had one of the most amazing Turtle Tours of the year. I was taking a small group of Spanish visitors out to Serra Negra under an amazingly starry sky. We had no less than five turtles (and one baby) on Serra Negra during the excursion! My record for the year of most turtles seen in one place. We had a turtle there waiting for us when we pulled up, though she soon just turned and went back into the water. We had run down from where the truck had dropped us off to catch a sight of her, just in time to get a good view of her backside heading back into the dark surf. But if our first glimpse had been fleeting, we had not long to wait before a second turtle, much less camera-shy, was spotted wandering around just up the beach, not twenty yards from where we had arrived. We must have run right past her in our hurry to see the first turtle! The second one provided a much more satisfactory show-and-tell, as she spent quite some time wandering around the beach, even starting to dig a nest right in the middle of the natural hatchery we have set up next to the camp (much to the worry of the rangers, who thought she may actually accidentally dig up another nest). She ended up not nesting, even though we were very careful to hang behind her and not frighten her. Perhaps she was just a bit of a show-off.

Less than a half hour later as we continued down to the next bay, my personal turtle record was smashed out of the park when we found ourselves with three turtles on our stretch of beach all at once! I had seen one coming up out of the water further down the beach, and I left my tour group just behind me while I crawled up to check on what she was doing (once a turtle starts laying eggs, we can get close to watch). I looked past the first turtle, and saw a second turtle on her way back down the beach to the sea! When I glanced back to let my group know about the two turtles ahead of us, they were waving at me frantically and pointing behind them. There was another turtle coming up out of the water behind them! Three turtles all in one go! We ended up getting to watch the middle turtle nest, which was also amazing, as it always is. To top off the night, a single little hatchling had emerged from the natural hatchery we keep by the Serra Negra camp, so we go to release him as well, watching the tiny version of the loggerhead turtle waggle his way down the glowing sand into the moonlit sea, as if to let us know that there is ever still hope.

Come Sail Away

Some days require an escape.
I decided that it was time to splurge on a little something special for one of my days off. Sometimes the turtle life gets to be a bit too much – as much as I really love the team that I am working with here on Sal, life in Turtle House means you never really get away from the job. So I decided the time had come to sail away.

I booked a day trip on the Kafeoli, a gorgeous 60 foot sailboat that anchors in the bay by the Santa Maria pier. She is owned by an incredible French couple that have crossed the Atlantic twice on her. They live a life I sometimes dream of: sailing to a new and exciting place, seeing all there is to see over a couple of years, earning enough money by taking people out on the boat, and then moving on to the next interesting place. They were very welcoming as we put on super-puffy orange life vests and loaded into a dinghy from the pier to head out to the ship. It was an amazing experience, and everything I needed to recharge my batteries.

The sun and the wind were perfect for sailing that afternoon. Puffy cotton ball clouds drifted lazily across the endless sky, shuttled by the gentle breeze that filled the canvas sails of the Kafeoli. We headed out, leaving the colorful buildings and palm trees of Santa Maria in a perfect arc behind us as we sailed across the glittering bay, over surreal aquamarine water and out into the deeper blue sea. I was joined by Nate, Suzy, Phil, and Hazel on the ship, and we lounged on the front end of the ship enjoying the lunches we had packed while the crew provided us with cold orange juice spiked heavily with rum (a potentially dangerous combination on the swaying deck). We were delighted to see flying fish come catapulting out of the water, soaring between the deep troughs of the rolling waves, flapping along just like birds until they disappeared once again with a splash of foam into the ocean. We sailed up along the West coast of the island, looking from new perspective at beaches we knew so well from our foot patrols. It was glorious. I stood out on the jib at the very front of the prow, nothing below my feet but a plank of wood as we skimmed the glistening surface. I think I get the “I’m king of the world!” feeling…

After sailing up past the hatchery – where we tried not to pity our colleges busy at work – we anchored just south of Mount Leon to have a swim in the amazingly warm and crystal blue sea. There was a rope swing tied from the mast and we brought it up to the prow where we were instructed by the crew to climb up on the railing and leap out, seeing how far along the edge of the boat we could swing before dropping, laughing, into the waves below. It was fantastic fun, though at one point, Nate didn’t let go soon enough and ended up swinging back onto the boat to land with a crash on top of the cabin roof, much to the surprise of the Captain, who had been walking up the ladder underneath. After getting over our original shock, we all laughed our heads off, and let Nate have another redemption attempt. We also dropped baited lines into the water off the stern of the boat to try and catch any of the bountiful species of fish that occupy the waters of Cape Verde. In the end, it was only the Captain that managed to catch anything – a spiny but very tasty little fish with orange stripes.

When we had tired of swimming around, we draped ourselves over the deck of the boat once more, juice in hand, to dry out as we headed back towards Santa Maria. The sun was setting behind the island, providing a most glorious welcome as we reentered the calm of the bay. The sails were glowing with the evening light, and I was crushed to see the trip come to an end, but utterly elated with the events of the day. A brilliant idea, if I do say so myself.

The Smelliest Cute Things You’ll Ever Love

It’s baby season!

Like something out of a zombie apocalypse farce, a nightly emergence has begun on the beaches of Sal. Scaly gray miniature turtles with big doe eyes pop out of the ground en masse and make their way across the sand towards the sea with an awkward wiggle that is guaranteed to elicit a melting heart from any witnesses. Hatching time has begun, and those loggerhead turtle nests that we have been watching eagerly for the past couple of months are spouting out the most adorable, stinky creatures you ever did see. Baby turtles are simultaneously utterly precious and uber smelly, and we love them.

Hatching season entails a number of adjustments in “turtle procedure” from the nesting season. While we are still relocating at-risk turtle nests into our hatchery – digging up eggs and putting them into new nests within the safety of the nursery walls – we are now also getting to enjoy the hatching of those nests that went in at the start of the season. It’s as if the “Ding!” on the oven has sounded, and the clutches of eggs that have been cozy under the sand for the past two months are ready to come out. Like dominoes in a chain reaction, the hatching of the first nest has triggered the rest to follow in short order, and we have had hatching nests for several days in a row now, on the beaches and inside the hatchery – sometimes more than one. The majority of the babies emerge from the nest at night and, if they are in situ on the beaches, make their way to the moonlit waves of the ocean to begin a journey we cannot begin to comprehend. Those that come out in the hatchery are quickly released in the same way by the ranger on duty there. However, in most nests, not all of the little turtles make it out on the first go and there will often be a dozen or so still down inside the nest the day after the big rush sends most of their brothers and sisters to the sea. This is when the excavations begin, and they are a lot of fun. In the hatchery – and as often as we can on the beaches as well – we will go into a hatched nest the next evening and open up the egg chamber to pull out any remaining hatchlings and to check out what has happened with any other unhatched eggs inside the nest. Excavations are brilliant because all the tourists lounging on the beach are willing to drop their beers and trashy magazines and come running to see baby turtles. It is when we do some of our best outreach and we get some people really excited about sea turtles and the project. It’s great fun to dig into a nest, feel a wriggling little baby just under the sand, pull him out into the afternoon sunlight, blinking and flapping his little flippers enthusiastically, and to hear the collective “Awwwww” from the crowd – men and women, adults and children alike. We walk the bucket of babies around to let everyone see, occasionally stopping to look in and admire them ourselves. They are hilarious to watch, often flipping each other over onto their backs where they wiggle around frantically for a few seconds until they can flop back onto their bellies and continue their eager laps around the inside of the tub.

We also check out the rest of the science project inside the nest. Often we will find pips, which are partially-hatched babies still stuck halfway in their shells – which makes for a super cute image. Sometimes they are alive still, and we set them aside in a quiet, dark place to see if they can hatch themselves the rest of the way out. Sometimes they don’t make it, but such is nature. We have a few oddities as well. We have already found several albinos this season, but they don’t tend to survive beyond the nest. We had one live hatchling with no flippers, which was heartbreaking, but what do you do with a sea turtle that can’t swim? Last year they found a two-headed baby in the nest, and just a couple of days ago we had a hump-backed wee turtle. I will ever wonder if he/she will make it the 25 years to maturity, misshapen shell and all.

The best nights are when we get hatching nests and nesting turtles all in one shift. On Saturday, Berta and I got to excavate a nest out on the Costa Fragata beach. Eighty-three percent of the nest had hatched (which is a good percentage; we anticipate and hope for around 75 or 80%), and we found just one little baby left inside the nest, right under the soft sand near the surface. He flapped terrifically as we lifted him into the morning light, ready to taste the salt of the sea. We set him on the smooth sand near to where the waves were lapping the beach and he headed off, awkward gait and all, into the direction of the rising sun. Too fantastic.

Tropical Skin Diseases and Cups of Tea

Is it already September?

Somewhere in the world beyond this hot island the iminent arrival of autumn has begun to shift the patterns of daily life. Blonde streaks and tan lines start to fade under the florescent lighting of classrooms and offices. The evenings are cooler and sunset arrives sooner. Bright patterns and swimsuits find their way to clearance shelves. The baking heat and parched ground of summer begin to subdue, passing sleepily into the hints of the next season.

But not here. On the island of Sal an inconsolable haze seems to curtain off the rest of the world, sealing in not only the persistant tropical heat but the cultural attitude it imbies in the local inhabitants. Two days of torrential rain that left murky, stagnant pools in place of the dry red dust are the only signs that – perhaps somewhere else on the planet – summer may be drawing to an end. Life in Cabo Verde does not adjust to September. The beaches are still packed every day with tourists and locals alike, surfing, swimming, and frying in the violent rays of yellow sunshine. The mosquitos continue to torment and sticky sweet sand applies itself liberally to every surface. I have heard little, if no, news from the place beyond where something distant called a global economy and international enterprise are assumed to exist and function. Every day here is humidity and turtles. And apparently I have some odd tropical skin disease on my neck. Exciting new developments. I asked our taxi driver the other day if the temperature cools off at all come October. He chuckled.

The only sign of the changing season that we have been afforded is reflected in the changing dynamic within Turtle House. There are significantly fewer of us now, as those volunteers that were here for summer holidays have returned home to jobs, classes, and “real life” in the world beyond. As result, life has mellowed. We have less of the boyant, vibrant evenings like we did when the group of chipper French Scouts was here – ten or twelve people crammed into the kitchen (and no one wearing much more than swimsuits because of the heat among all the bodies), their conversation and laughs bouncing off the concrete walls and reverberating around the whole house, the smells of everyone cooking wafting through the open windows, guitar music and card games. Neither do we have the same level of tension in the house that stemmed from coordinating the schedules, personalities, and cultures of a group larger than twenty. Now things are mellow. Chill. Fewer dirty dishes crowd the sink and communal dinner times are cozy and familiar. Everyone more or less knows the jobs they have to do and how we all fit into each others schedules. I am not yet sure which dynamic I prefer, though I can definitely say that both lifestyles have been enjoyable in their own right. It will be interesting to watch the season wind down as September unfolds.

Festival das Tartarugas

30 August, 2011

I have decided to start keeping a record of how many times I can run through the streets of a city dressed like some sort of endangered creature.

The Gorilla Run was a start – hairy black suits and plastic bananas pounding over the January pavement in downtown Austin for a charitable 5k aimed at raising funds for the conservation of silverback gorillas in Kenya. It was a fantastic experience to be sure (especially since it cumulated into a pub party at 10 in the morning) – but it may have just been outdone by the homemade, cardboard turtle shells and chanting of “tar-tar-u-gas!” by shining face children, dancing through the streets of Santa Maria to the rhythm of a drum line on a hot summer morning. Round, happy cheeks sported turtles and bubbles, sweat causing the face paint to run as some of the most enthusiastic dancers on the island grasped hands and paraded along beneath the date palms, causing locals and tourists alike to stare at the public display of affection for the ever-incredible sea turtle.

This morning, we celebrated the first ever Festival das Tartarugas in Santa Maria – a festive occasion complete with a children’s parade, live music, juice and cookies to celebrate the islands iconic sea turtles. Besides the downright, colorful, wholesome good time, to see a crowd of all ages raising cane about the conservation of an animal formerly viewed as a menu item in this culture was awe-inspiring.

Joana is essentially the sole member of the SOS Tartarugas team that works in community outreach and education. Though those of us on the tourism team do some work in establishing relationships with local businesses and community members, the work that Joana does is in a different league. She reaches out on behalf of the organization to everyone from government officials, media representatives, school children, and fishermen’s co-ops all around the island of Sal. Though a few of us help her when we are available, and an amazing Peace Corps volunteer living in Espargos by the name of Sarah contributes a lot of time to the education programs she puts on for school kids, Joana is pretty much a one-woman show – and the work she does is arguably the most important in terms of creating a future for this organization and hope for the loggerhead turtle species here in Cabo Verde. It is only by establishing a positive relationship with the local community and by teaching the value and importance of sea turtles to youth to change the age-old mentality of turtle consumption that the conservation work we do here has any sustainable merit. Our efforts to preserve the species and their habitat can only be accomplished if – in the long run – the people of Cabo Verde grow to appreciate and desire the turtles, and to want to work to keep them around.

This is why Joana worked so hard to host the fantastic Festival das Tartarugas – and she did an amazing job. Everyone had such an amazing time, and I can only wonder at the perceptions that were created regarding sea turtles and local involvement as the community watched their next generation parade by in open, enthusiastic support of these incredible creatures. We had a blast. The musicians were ridiculously talented and energetic, leading us around the town center with whistles and drums, cheering and clapping, keeping the children in time to the beat and out of the way of taxis speeding by. Women leaned out their windows, shopkeepers were drawn to their stoops, and tourists seated at the outdoor plastic tables of the nearby restaurants stopped, stared, and smiled as we passed. At some point, a cheeky-faced young girl with a turtle slightly smeared across her right cheek latched on to my left arm and, after draping her paper turtle costume across my shoulders, we danced up a storm through the streets, unabashed, laughing across the languages and the ages and the races and the cultures, enjoying our turtle party. Our palms were sweaty and I definitely had a backpack tan line by the end of the festive parade, so we happily sipped juice and snacked on cookies as the march came to a close in the Cultural Center off the town square. The only thing that would have made the morning better was if the turtles could have joined in the fun. How much of a turtle nerd am I right now?

Noon on the Santa Maria Pier

The sun has just begun to blaze midday heat through the sultry sea air and the flowers that open their soft violet faces to the day each morning have not yet withdrawn from its yellow fierceness. Most of my favorite shops and cafes aren’t yet open, and the streets are not yet loud. I rub sticky sweet maple syrup off my fingers from the banana pancake and bacon breakfast I’ve just finished at the restaurant here in town that reminds me most of home, Papaia. I stretch my legs out under the plastic table, digging my heels into soft wood weakened by the endless salt spray billowing up through the railing of the deck that reaches out beyond the glass windows at the back of the restaurant and over the restless grey waters below. The view here is perfect. I can see none of the dust or construction of the city behind me – only the vast panorama of an ocean that stretches into the endless distance. Painted fishing boats bob like bath toys in the bay to my right, and a dark crab scuttles over the barnacle-encrusted, glistening black rocks below the deck to my left, barely hanging on as he is pounded by white foam. I take my morning in silence, like coffee with sugar, and wonder how I will pass a day without turtles.

One of my favorite things to do on the day each week that I am off work is to wander down to the Santa Maria pier. Each morning, before noon, the length of the jetty bustles with more people and activity than a single pair of eyes could ever absorb. The fishing boats are coming in from their pre-dawn pursuits, bringing in the bounty of the crystal blue ocean to share and sell. Curvy women wrapped in brightly patterned scarves and sarongs carry big plastic buckets down to the end of the pier, followed by crowds of squealing children in swimming trunks and curious tourists with their cameras out. They will collect their kilos of fish, and return to white and red parasols with ice cream logos printed on the sections, beneath which they will de-scale, filet, and sell the many types of fish hauled up onto the wood planks. Men of all shapes and sizes – some with thick tangles of dreadlocks framing high cheekbones weathered by years at sea, others young and muscular who drop down at random intervals to do push-ups on the dock – crowd around and join in the growing circle. People shout back and forth to each other, bargaining kilos for price, tossing their slippery silver catch into wheelbarrows and stringing bug-eyed fish onto lines to distribute to the many hands of the waiting crowd. Young boys take sudden, flying leaps off the edge of the pier into the water below, unconcerned to how nearby the propellers of the boats spin. A bright red tarp conceals fish of enormous size, their forked tails sticking awkwardly out of the end of their wrappings like a bad mafia job. Buckets strung on knotted ropes haul up load of seawater to keep the cargo damp in the growing heat of the midday sun, and young boys drop fishing lines into the schools of little fish that circle around the chum tossed off the dock from above. I love the hustle and movement, even the fishy smell and the salt spray on my face, the sun glinting off the drops of seawater on the nets and the scales of the fish bodies laid out in rows. It is very much alive here.