The turtle transcript. Part 3, letting go.

A Loggerhead turtle can weigh anywhere between 150 to 450 kilos. If it is your job to stop the turtle you can expect bulldozer type force pushing against your hands. The stopper, wrestler, anchor or whatever you call the person, has the job to prevent the turtle from going back into the water before it is tagged. We were shown a technique to stop the turtle, which is pretty much the same as catching a footy with soft hands. Hold your hands up in the shape of a W and place them over the eyes of the turtle. Her neck will snap back, retracting in its shell with enormous force. If you happen to get your fingers caught between the head and the carapace (shell) you can easily break them. If you have your fingers anywhere near its mouth, expect a crocodile like chomp on your pointers. At the end of our time on Turtle Beach we became very quick at tagging so that this ‘stopper’ technique was rarely needed or perhaps for a few seconds only. If we were caught out by an alert turtle, we would move with her sideways on our knees through the sand until she faced back to the dunes - we could then uncover her eyes. We were always looking to lessen the impact we had on the turtles.

The large head of a Loggerhead turtle

The scribe, administrator, manager or whatever you would call this team member, has the job to write all the data that is thrown at her/him from all angles. You have to be aware which beach you are on at all times (1-5), take notes on the size of the beast and jot down old or new tag numbers. This job required extreme precision and care because this is the valuable data the researchers are looking for; the purpose of us being on Dirk Hartog in the first place. This turtle tagging data has been collected for the last 15 years on DHI – they are looking for the size and health of the turtle population nesting on Turtle Beach. Writing data down on a sheet in pitch black by the muted light of a red head-torch is not easy. 




Julie scribing in the dark with head torch

The tagger is just  known as the tagger. It is the taggers job to reload the pliers with the tags, get on hands and knees in the sand, find the spot between the first and the second scale of the front flipper and aim the tag at the soft, squishy batwing. Hand crunching strength is needed to make sure the tag clasps properly. A misfire happened on the odd occasion and once or twice a tag had to be removed. This wasn’t a pleasant feeling for the team or the turtle. Nobody wanted to hurt these beautiful ladies at all or as little as possible. It spurred us on to work faster, better and more precisely.



Can you spot a tag?

I must say, that night four had a special feel to it. Walking around in star-lit serenity was magic. A thin slither of the moon made our torches unnecessary. The weather was beautiful and temperate. Our three man ‘Dong’ team (short for Dugong and given to us by Officer Locke as this team were all seegrass eating vegetarians). Steve, Marigula and myself left the troopy to tag on beach 1, 2 and 3 in a great mood. Our arrival on beach two was met with several fresh tracks up the beach and several turtles already returning. We swung into action and for an hour and a half it was just turtle mayhem, tagging one after the other. Sand was flicked by flippers, pits were fallen into, turtles were spun away from the beach, pliers flew through the air, sweaty bodies smacked into each other and numbers were dictated sharply into the night. We all knew what needed to be done and we were on the go. After a short breather, we walked onto beach 1 where I could not believe how many turtles were coming and going. Frantically we tried to keep up with the traffic jam. At one stage it became confusing which turtle we had already tagged and we had to refer back to the long list of recorded tag numbers. I forget how long that burst of turtle action was, but it was tremendous being near these prehistoric, grand ol’ ladies. When the loggerhead jam eased, we sat down on the beach having conversations ranging from the deep and meaningfull to the utter ridiculous. I am still trying to work out how Marigula could see the shape of an elephant in the stars. Sometimes the short spaces of quiet were broken by a yawn and a “sorry”.

Marigula admiring the grand ol' lady from a respectable distance

Steve went to count the tracks on all five beaches and we caught up with the carnivorous Cuvier team at beach 1 and waited for the sun to come up. When it finally became light, tranquility was personified in all shades and colours of the spectrum. What does that mean?  It was a ripper of a sunrise!!

In the first daylight on beach 1 it became clear what kind of a night we had as the beach was completely covered in turtle tracks.




Evidence of the night we had with the ladies

On the end of one of these tracks was one last lady turtle laying her eggs on the beach. “aren’t you going to tag this one?” I was asked. It just didn’t feel right. We all sat down in the sand at a respectable distance from the laying turtle and watched her every misting move. A feeling of calm and awe came over me and I hope to have shared that with my teammates. After a hectic night of hunting down turtles like terriers, this turtle was not going to be tagged. She was going to elegantly finish her natural calling. The old girl was going to be let go in peace. Discretely we took photos of her long misting session and her return to the water took a wonderfully long time, while her skin colours and reflections in the water, slowly became visible in the brightening sky.





She was truly beautiful

 

Grey Bits





Sometimes a rock got in the way

... she had to be patient


 

... waiting for the wash of a bigger wave
 

 

... and then finally disappearing into the ocean
 

Some nights the tagging was a bit slow due to the turtles numbers being low. If the decision was made to wait for  a turtle to finish laying her eggs we got comfortable by shoving our back-sides forward and backwards in the sand. This process became known as “scoot’n”.

Turtle tagging is a physical game. I estimate that we walked over ten kilometers mainly through soft sand every night. We climbed over several  rocky outcrops and handling a large turtle can be very physically demanding.

On quite a few occasions a turtle raked its carapace edge over my foot. With several hundred kilos of weight behind it, this could have hurt easily were it not for the steel capped boots I was very pleased to be wearing.

If you don’t like to wear sand in your boots or up your undies, I recommend you wear long pants during the nightshift.




You can wear more casual gear during the day

In the day time we were sleeping until 12 noon. Earplugs and those airplane eye-patches could come in handy. Or you could bring two pirate eye patches.




Thanks Steve for all your hard work

Turtle tagging on Dirk Hartog Island is done in January. I hear it is difficult to get in if you are not invited or know someone. You can try to contact DPaW if you are keen to give turtle tagging a shot. Contact Phone (08) 9948 2226 or click on the following links www.sharkbay.org, www.dpaw.wa.gov.au for more information.



Thanks to all the volunteers for this unforgettable adventure

 

 
If you like my blog, please, feel free to share it with others.

 

 

The turtle transcript. Part 2. Scoot'n with ladies.

West point on Dirk Hartog Island

 

We were expertly told by Officer Locke how, where and when to tag the turtles that first night.

First of all we had red light settings on our torches. Loggerhead turtles don’t like the bright, white lights and are likely to try and run??? to the water as quick as they can, which isn’t really that quick at all, if disturbed. 

 

 

Shhh

 

Sneaking up to your first turtle from behind, as quiet as the mice of Cape Inscription, donning  a red headlight is exhilarating to say the least. On hands and knees we crawled slowly through the sand and sat down behind the turtle. Steve would give quiet, patient explanations about the egg laying process.



One of the first turtles we spotted.

It is truly amazing what the Loggerhead  turtle does when its on the beach. Caretta Caretta (Latin for Loggerhead turtle) move slowly but powerfully up the beach, leaving a trail behind for the tagger to see. The easiest way to spot a turtle is by looking for tracks. After several days of tagging, we even knew if a turtle had a return track back to the water and not to bother investigating the dune's edge for its whereabouts.

 

Tracks in and out of the beach during daylight

Loggy finds herself a good place to make a pit, slightly bigger than its own body, usually somewhere above the high-tide mark and mainly before the start of the dunes. We call swishing around the sand in that first stage, pitting. Turtles do everything at their own individual pace, but after some time they start building their egg chamber. Amazingly they do this with their hind flippers in a breaststroke, digging kind of action or a wax-on ,wax-off motion. I have seen cavities at least 500mm deep which can take a long time to construct. Then, suddenly, all gets quiet. The turtle has positionsed her body diagonally across the pit with her back end over the chamber. We were told that this is the moment the turtles don't feel a thing due to hormonal painkillers provided by mother nature.

 

A pitt for laying eggs or to stumble in

I had the absolute privilege to see the eggs drop into the chamber close up. It is a beautiful moment which will be imprinted into my semi-grey matter forever. With my little red torch lighting up the scene dimly, I saw the miniature elephant trunk like cloaca (yes, I am hoping you are learning something new here) move forward and then backwards as if contracting. Covered in a slimy substance, round fair -sized eggs dropped down from the cloaca into the chamber.

 

Looking into the chamber underneath the turtle at the eggs by red light

 

 

 

Some turtles are prolific and fill up their chamber to the brim, some just lay a couple and have had enough. Laying procedures come to an abrupt halt when she decides to start covering up the chamber with sand by an almost reverse wax-on, wax-off motion which ends up in a firm flipper full of sand pat-down on top of the eggs. Beach Tai Chi at its best. Throughout the five nights we realize that this is the best moment to tag her while she is still under the influence of natures cocktail of drugs and is worn out from the monumental task that is egg-laying on the beach. 

 

 

 

The multiple use cloaca 

 

 

 

After packing down her eggs with sand, the turtle now reveals her mistress stroke of deception. This is a process called ‘misting’. The only way I can describe it properly, is that it looks like she is trying to swim on dry land. A fine spray of sand is flicked up backwards over the hollow leaving no trace of disturbance. In fact, a fake pit is created right next to the heaped misted sand and therefore tricking every egg predator into searching  the wrong spot. Very clever.  It is not a good idea to sit behind the turtle when it’s misting if you don’t want to be covered in sand. Even more cunning is that the fake pits are left for those unsuspected, tired, turtle taggers to stumble in. This happened time and time again, until we accepted the turtle had ‘one-over’ on us in those long, dark nights and we just kept on stumblin'. I can imagine her smiling each time we went down. After her dry swim, she returned exhausted back to the ocean. She slowed down considerably from the breakneck speed displayed when first entering the beach and takes many a breather on the way out. Sometimes there is a clear passage to the shore and she will disappear in an instant, sometimes she gets stuck behind a rock or on top of a rocky reef. Patiently she will wait to coolly ride the next outgoing wave. The surf will carry her off any obstacle and soon she will disappear in the dark water.

 

 

 

A Ghost crab and egg predator

 

 

 

 



Grey Bits

Phone (08) 9948 2226 or click on the following links www.sharkbay.org, www.dpaw.wa.gov.au for more information on turtle tagging..



Turtle Bay overlooking beach 3, 4 and 5.

 

 

Some nights the tagging was a bit slow due to the turtles numbers being low. If the decision was made to wait for  a turtle to finish laying her eggs, we got comfortable by shoving our back-sides forward and backwards in the sand and laying down in the pit we created. This process we called  “scoot’n”.

 

  



Photo taken during an excursion to Dampiers landing

 

 

 

The Turtle Transcript: Part 1, getting to Dirk




Have you ever had the experience where an unexpected adventure smashes your bucket list to pieces? That’s what turtle tagging did for us.

 



Approaching Dirk Hartog Island

We were gifted this amazing opportunity by the head ranger Chris from Shark Bay to join the turtle tagging team on Dirk Hartog Island (DHI) and accepted the invitation in a hurry.




Firing engines

This time we did not bring any bananas on board (see Banana boat blog) and the engines were roaring as we sailed with the wind through our hair to Dirk Hartog Island. We met the best turtle tagging team in the world on board and high levels of energy were almost touchable in the air. After a rapid off-load of the barge and upload of the Island’s troopy (a Japanese brand troop carrier) we bounced along on white, dirt tracks to Cape Inscription and our new head quarters for the next five days.



Loading troopy




This Island was accidentally bumped into by de Eendracht with Dirk Hartog as captain on 25 October 1616 - the first European to set foot on Australian soil. Apparently the Dutchman misjudged his navigational tools by a couple of degrees on his voyage to the East Indies and, by fluke, landed here. He named the Island after himself, as you would, and put a plaque up on what became aptly known as Cape Inscription. The round plate with inscription of the date and mention of some of the crew, can now be found in the Rijksmuseum in The Netherlands. If you look at the date, it is nearly 400 years ago when the Amsterdammer made his faux pas and a special celebration is planned by the local authorities this October. Twenty six million Aussie dollars is set aside for this purpose, which includes a tour of the replica Duyfken to Denham. I hope you haven’t capsized of boredom with this thrilling history lesson.

 

Historical Cape Inscription



For this semi -Dutch nomad arriving here on this wild barren cape, where currently a crude fake plaque resides over Cape Inscription, has enhanced meaning. Standing there overlooking Turtle Bay, I felt that this is the point where the two countries, that mean so much to me, intersect. Cape Inscription, with its gathering of old and new history, is the place that symbolises my own journey. It is that same melting pot of the quirky twists of fate that enrich my life and in the end has brought me to this Island. 

 



The road to Cape Inscription



After we settled in at the homestead we were amazed about the co-inhabitants we were sharing the building with. An infestation of cute little grey mice were busily investigating every inch of mostly the kitchen. If you left any food in a bag in your room, holes would appear in your bag overnight and your food would be gone. We all slept under mosquito nets but I saw way more mice than the dreaded mozzies. One girl woke up screaming when a mouse crawled up on the inside of a net and dropped on her head in the middle of the night. Several bungarras lived under and around the homestead and were seen snacking on the rodents.

 

 

We enjoyed a team briefing by ranger Steve, the team leader we had affectionately baptised as Officer Locke. This nickname was due to an incident at Francois Peron National Park where we were in hot pursuit of two German tourists that failed to stop for a chat. If you follow that up by riding a quad bike with sunnies and a silver helmet around the island, you are the ‘Po’lice’ in anyone’s eyes.

 

Officer Locke ready to put on the sunnies




Officer Locke gave us the lowdown on working hours, sleeping times and turtle tagging. Little did we know that other than his huge work ethic, this gentleman also possessed a great sense of humour,   knowledge of the stars, animals, surviving in the wild, bush cooking and porta-loos. We all loved listening to his blue-grass tunes on the guitar to while away the afternoon on the verandah.





Cool breeze and great views on this verandah

We organised ourselves for that night’s turtle tagging training session by packing snacks, checking batteries in our head torches and filling up our water bottles. When we all loaded into the troopy at 1900 we all felt the same thing. A hum of expectation came over us that night. We sat on the two bench seats in the back of the troopy, laughing and carrying on as if we were going to war.

 


Night Falls....



We are ready to tag some turtle!!!



Cape Inscription light house

 

Grey Bits

Turtle tagging on Dirk Hartog Island is done in January. I hear it is difficult to get in if you are not invited or you don't know someone. Contact DPaW if you are keen to give turtle tagging a shot. Phone (08) 9948 2226 or click on the following links www.sharkbay.org, www.dpaw.wa.gov.au for more information.

If you want to send me an email about anything you have read or have any suggestions for me I would love to hear from you. Click on the link underneath.



 





Airing the boots out for the nightshift