Anyways a few weeks ago at Pohue I saw my first hatchlings!! Seeing a main emergence is pretty rare, and I was lucky enough to see not one, but four! For the first one, we were sitting in our chairs during the first few minutes of night monitoring and I looked over and thought I saw a bunch of crabs, but then it clicked and I said "OH MY GOSH HATCHLINGS" and we ran over and started counting them and trying to track where the original nest was. Then Jessie ran back to camp to get some supplies, and I was wondering why she was taking so long. Then I turned around and she yelled, "WE HAVE ANOTHER NEST". So we had two main emergences happening at the same time. Each nest probably had over 100 baby turtles, it was such a neat experience.
After that trip to Pohue, our awesome boss Cathy took some of us on an adventure to a waterfall on the North side of the island. We stopped for smoothies on the way and then parked at a bridge near the falls. It was in the middle of a really thick rain forest, and we hiked about 30 minutes to reach the big waterfall. I got eaten alive by mosquitos but once we saw the waterfall for the first time it was so worth it. Here's a video from that trip:
On another one of our days off, everyone that was out of the field went to the night market in Kalapana. It's basically like a huge farmer's market in a huge lava field, and the atmosphere was sooo cool! There was live music and lots of dancing and everyone was just so happy and I got to spend it with awesome people. it was definitely a highlight of my summer here. We danced all night and Cathy joined us which made it even better!
The next morning began one of the best days ever…(then again, everyday here is the best day ever). I had a rental car and Brandon, Alex, Cameron, and I started on an adventure. We started south and stopped at the bakery for some malasadas first, and then we were on our way to South Point. The drive there was so beautiful and the guys were all super excited to do the jump. I was pretty sure I wasn't gonna do it, since it's like a 50 foot drop into the ocean…But this video sums it up pretty well.
Jumping in was the scariest, coolest, most amazing thing ever. After I did it I had so much adrenaline and telling other people there that you did the jump was an awesome feeling.
After that we made our way over to Kona, with a quick stop at Two Step for snorkeling and lunch at the Kona Brewing Company. Then we walked around downtown and got back home in volcano later that night. The day after that I still had one more day with the rental car so I went along the north coast and stopped at some cool overlooks.
So after my day of adventuring I was waiting for the bus back to Volcano after I returned the rental car, but then I realized Cathy and Mackenzie were in town too, so I met up with them and we went out for sushi and Cathy drove us back to the house. As if my last few days couldn't get any better, somehow something random and spontaneous always happens and it gets even more awesome.
The next day was also not planned and I ended up road tripping to Kona again with Cathy, and we decided to do a snorkel with the manta rays. Here's a video from that:
So right now we're all hanging out at the house for a few days, there's a hurricane/tropical storm coming so we were evacuated from the field yesterday. We haven't all been home together at the same time in so long, and everyone's been having a great time and it's so great being all together, especially before some of us leave the project to head home.
My family also flies in from Michigan today, so I'll get to see them for in a week or so and I'm so stoked!! I haven't seen them in almost three months and I can't wait til they get here.
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