Week Two: Random Thoughts

We just got back from our last week of orientation yesterday, and we have two days off to relax and recover! People even went to bed at 3pm, the hiking and lack of sleep have been a tough adjustment. We hiked backcountry this time, which refers to beaches that are still on park property. Here's some random stuff that happened.

-Centipedes. Scorpions. Cockroaches. I'm learning to get comfortable with bugs real quick. The centipedes are HUGE. We saw one that was probably 6 inches long crawling on our picnic table and I wanted to cry. To kill it, you have to grab two pliers and pull it apart, and then take it as far away from camp because when they die they release a scent or something that attracts more….. (yuck). They can sting too, yikes.

-The Hawaiian people are awesome! Most people really appreciate what we do on the turtle project and love "turtle people".

-We ran into the crew working with invasive species through the NPS, and they're awesome! It's a group of 6 or 7 Hawaiian guys and one named Tallen gave us some cold coconut pudding called haupia his mom made. It was different but pretty good! They're also really into spear fishing. One of them caught a huge lobster at one of the beaches we were staying at!

-Hiking over lava rock with a 30+ pound pack in the sun on no sleep is definitely the hardest thing I've ever done. We hiked over 60 miles this week and I'm exhausted! ButI'll never forget the feeling when we were hiking out on our last day, and after 3 hours of walking over lava rock with all our gear, we saw our white truck in the distance. Such an awesome feeling!

-So thankful we don't have to hike in our water!! It gets flown in by a helicopter and it costs around $1200 to do that…so I'm drinking $1200 water which is pretty cool! 

-I'm learning to nap whenever and wherever I can, 4 hours of sleep has been rough!

Week one

Finally got a chance to do some posting! We've been pretty busy with training the last few weeks and haven't had much time off. Anyways, the first week was great! My supervisor, Liz, picked up me and one other worker from the hostel we were staying at in Hilo, and then we started our shopping. First we got breakfast at a little local place that had huge pancakes that were probably bigger than my head. Then we went to four stores to stock up on food to keep at our house, food for hiking/camping, and other stuff for the house like shampoo, sunscreen (lots and lots of sunscreen), etc. We had the afternoon to chill and then 3 more volunteers came that night. Right now there's 5 people working including me and everyone gets along great! We're from all over, Maine, Florida, Minnesota, California, and Michigan, and range between ages 19 and 27. Our house is actually in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, and as you can imagine, living in a National Park is pretty amazing! There's other houses for volunteers like us, we've met people that work on a bird project, astronomy stuff, and we're known as "turtle people. There's a group of about 5 more turtle volunteers coming in a few weeks. Here's some pictures of our house! It's 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms with a huge family room.

It's also like a quarter mile from an amazing overlook where you can see the crater! At night you can see it glowing from the lava. 

We also started our orientation trip for training! Our first trip we went to a beach called Kamehame, and it's about an hour drive on the highway and then another hour down a 4-wheel drive road. All 5 volunteers and our two supervisors went with us and we set up camp when we got there. We have a small tent set up and then a wooden box with kitchen supplies and other miscellaneous stuff. Thankfully we don't need to hike our water in and it gets dropped off by a helicopter. A typical day was something like this:

6am: Wake up and walk the beach, searching for turtle tracks and digs. 

6:30am: Trap check. We set traps for mongoose, feral cats, and rats since they each nests and hatchlings. I got to euthanize about 7 mongoose so far…it was sad at first but then I realized how mean they were and that they eat baby turtles and I was alright.

7am: Call the office and dispatch and check in/report turtle activity

7:15am: Breakfast and pack up for our day hike

7:45am: Day hile to other beaches which can range between 1.5-4.5 miles away and check those beaches for turtle activity. 

Noon-1pm-ish: Return to camp and SLEEP

4pm: Set predator traps

5pm: Night monitoring begins! Turtles most often nest at night, and our goal is to see the mama turtle come up from the ocean and mark and label her nest, and check her for tags or tag her if she doesn't have any. We check the beach every hour until 2am.

7pm: Stay on the beach and look for turtles. Most nights there won't be any activity since there are only about 100 documents hawksbill turtles that nest on Big Island. 

2am: Assuming there's no activity, we go to bed. But if there is activity, we have to stay up with the mama turtle until she returns to the ocean, which is a process that can last many hours. 

It's definitely exhausting, but it's so worth it! It's such a privilege to work with such a rare and amazing species.   

Here's some of the beaches we've worked at.

Sleeping in my hammock is great!

Black sand beach at Punalu'u

I made it!

Finally made it to Hilo this afternoon! All my flights went well and all luggage accounted for.

Had some free time this afternoon to explore downtown, everything is so green and beautiful! Went to a local market and accidentally got 15 bananas instead of 3…but other than that everything is going great! Leaving for HAVO tomorrow morning.

Hilo

How cool is this tree!

Am I doing this blog thing right?

Hello! I'm Emma and this is a little blog about my experience volunteering with a sea turtle research and conservation project in Hawaii. So I've never tried this whole blog thing before, so we'll see how this goes… I'm 5 days away from leaving home in Michigan to go to Hawaii for the summer! The official project title is the Hawaii Island Hawksbill Turtle Recovery Project, and is a partnership between Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, US Fish and Wildlife Service, National Marine Fisheries Service, the University of Hawaii, private landowners, and non-profits. Some of the main objectives include identifying hawksbill nesting beaches, monitor hawksbill nesting activities, collect baseline data, evaluate hawksbill nesting biology, protect hawksbill nests from predation, ensure live hatchlings reach the ocean, and increase public awareness of the hawksbill while promoting public stewardship of coastal and marine ecosystems. 

Hawksbill sea turtle
(image from biologicaldiversity.com)

So as you can tell I'm really passionate about sea turtle research and conservation, but here's a little more about me. I just finished my sophomore year at Michigan State University and I'm currently studying Environmental Biology/Zoology as a member of Lyman Briggs College. I love country music, playing soccer, spending summer at our family cottage in Northern Michigan, running, and cuddling with my dog on a lazy day. 

My goal is to post at least once a week with pictures and write about whatever other adventures I go on! Hope you enjoy (: