Hatchlings!!!!!!

Firstly we need to say a great big thank you to the expats for attending night watches in the past couple of weeks, making donations and organizing and attending fundraising events. The next one coming up is ‘The Weakest Link’ to be held on Saturday 25th July at the Mountain View Hotel in Karaoglanoglu. The event includes local celebrities having a go as well as the opportunity to play yourself or nominate a friend, there is also a buffet! It promises to be a great evening out! Tickets are only 20TL and can be reserved at the Hotel itself, as well as from the SPOT stall at Lambousa Market and from Tricia on 05338469563. This events are such a vital and greatly appreciated side of our fund raising as I am sure you are all well aware that the project runs predominantly thanks to the donations from fundraisers and the general public.

So this week has been another eventful one at Alagadi, although those at the Goatshed working night shifts are still keenly awaiting their first hatchlings. On North we have been treated to not only one hatched nest but three and have already seen Green and Loggerhead hatchlings! Yesterday, Friday north get pretty exciting! It was Becca’s last day and she decided that coming off night work she would head straight north with myself and Tom, Sam also decided to tag along being worried about missing out on any fun! The morning went as normally as usual until all the excitement began at Tatlisu where we spotted the first hatchling tracks of the year! Even after three seasons Becca was as excited as ever. According to protocol we excavated the nest to retrieve any stragglers that may be too close to the surface and would get too hot during the day. We take these back to Alagadi to weigh and measure and release the following night under the cover of darkness. We also count the egg fragments to see how many hatchlings have hopefully made it to the sea and open any unhatched eggs to see what the problem may have been. With the hatchlings in a pile of damp sand in a bucket we headed onwards…only for disaster to strike! Myself and Becca were left at Esentepe to walk the beaches whilst the boys went for fuel, only an hour later when they hadn’t returned from a ten minute journey we were beginning to worry, how could they possibly have gotten lost. With a right puss on we began to walk towards Esentepe village, 20 minutes down the road we came across Tom walking towards us…problem, Tofas was finished for the time being anyway. Sam was hitching back to wake Robbo and we were left with a broken car and a bucket of hatchlings….interesting hitching attire! Fortunately a kind man in a very smart clean Mercedes picked us up and we rushed back to Alagadi at top speed!

The following day with a fixed Tofas we headed north again only to experience every single activity possible, we had FCU’s, FCA’s, both logger and green nests, a relocation and both species of hatchlings! Busy busy!

This week a few volunteers managed to get some chill out time to climb Besparmak…not so much relaxing as we’d imagined! Two and half hours after leaving Alagadi we reached the restaurant the other side, it was a great walk. But I think I speak for everyone when I say we got the biggest sweats on in the world!! Was a great achievement though!