January 20, 2015
A Trip into Tamarindo

At 11:00 am we went to Kike's for breakfast. There are seven different breakfast combinations on the menu and my favorite is #6: eggs, gallo pinto (a delicious Costa Rican mixture of rice and beans), and mango con leche. Breakfast always starts out with a platter of fresh fruit that can include bananas, pineapple, watermelon, papaya, and canteloupe.

After breakfast we made preparations for a trip into Tamarindo, which is just on the other side of the estuary. Arie accompanied all five of us volunteers, Laura, Sally, Alvin, Bill, and myself, for our big day in town. Nathan gave us a ride down a bumpy dirt road that parallels the beach and dropped us off at a small trailhead. From there, we hiked a short distance through the forest and came out at the southern end of Playa Grande, just past marker #36.

Tamarindo has a very efficient ferryboat service to cross the estuary. There is no timetable, but there are always boats at the shore waiting to ferry passengers across the narrow 100-meter wide mouth of the estuary. Bill wanted to swim across, but we had to talk him out of it, reminding him of that pesky crocodile lurking in the swirling waters. There is no dock; they just pull the little boat up as close as possible to the beach and the passengers hop on board. A couple of minutes later and we were on the other side.

Ferryboat service crosses the estuary from Playa Grande to Tamarindo

Tamarindo is a different world from Playa Grande, in spite of the short distance between the two places. We walked from the beach up to the main street of town, and suddenly there was traffic, loud music blaring from the stores, and crowds (relatively speaking) of people walking through the streets. We went down the length of the main street, about a kilometer, where we found our main destination: Nogui's Restaurant. This place, with a nice terrace overlooking the beach, is reputed to have very good pie, but they were out of banana cream pie. Instead we opted for ice cream, strawberry sundaes, and a banana split.

We did a little souvenir shopping, but most of what we saw seemed mass-produced and generic to any tropical location. I found some good coffee to bring back to colleagues at work, and found a nice wooden mask for my collection. We spent a couple of hours in the strange world of civilization, then walked back down to the estuary to catch the ferryboat back to Playa Grande.

We got back to the station in time to get ready for a swim in the ocean at sunset. This is my favorite time of day, jumping into the ocean and watching the glorious show on the horizon. Pelicans were swooping by us as we splashed in the surf, dramatically silhouetted against the setting sun. There is so much drama here in every little part of the day.

The end of another day on Playa Grande

The dinner menu at Kike's is much more extensive than the breakfast menu and there are still a number of things that I haven't tried. But my favorite is the casado, a traditional Costa Rican meal that features meat, rice, beans, salad, and french fries. Casado, which means "married man" in Spanish, is a typical meal that characterizes Costa Rican home cooking. At Kike's, the meat can be chicken, beef, or fish, and I've tried them all now, and all are very tasty. Add some of the homemade hot sauce that gets passed around the table and it is absolutely delicious.

It was another late night on the beach, and I worked the north end of Playa Grande with Shannon. We started out the night by releasing about 15 olive ridley hatchlings, some of which had been excavated from the Hatchery and others that had been excavated from the beach. We brought the bucket full of hatchlings to the surf line and gently tipped it over, allowing the hatchlings to get out on their own and orient themselves toward the incoming tide.

It was a slow process because sometimes the waves would carry them out to sea, while other times the waves would wash them further up on the beach. There was one hatchling in particular that just couldn't find the right way to go. Shannon used her light to try to direct him in the right direction and he finally figured it out. It took about an hour before we were certain that all of the hatchlings had made it into the ocean.

There were quite a few buscadores out, so that means there were tour groups waiting for the word that a turtle had been found. A couple of turtles did show up and this time it was the buscadores who found them and let us know. The first one was an olive ridley, although she was just finishing up her work, so we didn't get to work her.

The second one was a baula, a small leatherback that crawled high up on a steep berm above the beach and turned around to face the ocean. I laid down in the sand behind her, just as a large group of tourists was arriving to watch. The baula was finishing up digging the nest, slowly and methodically scooping out the sand one flipperful at a time. I studied her motions and was amazed at her dexterity; there was no need for her to see what she was doing—the flippers just knew exactly how to carry out the necessary work.

She began to lay the eggs and I reached down and gently pulled back her left flipper, which she was using to cover the nest. The eggs looked big and healthy, and she was dropping about four at a time. I watched carefully, using the clicker counter to keep track of the eggs. After she had dropped about 30 eggs, I took the long wire of the thermal couple and pushed it down into the middle of the nest. She continued to lay eggs for a few more minutes as the tourists gathered closer around me to watch. The final count was 102 eggs, the largest number I've seen yet. This wasn't counting the dozens of tiny little SAGs (shelled albumen globes) that get dropped at the end of the process.

While the baula was laying her eggs, Shannon was doing the measurements and assessing the overall condition of the turtle. She inspected her for wounds, injuries, or any abnormalities in her body, carapace, or flippers. The tourists dispersed and Shannon finished recording all the data, then we continued our sweep down the beach. We finished up at 5:00 am, just as first light was starting to appear in the east and the howler monkeys announced the beginning of a new day.