Strike One

What a mess. I was out a Boca Chica today for a UTV patrol. My day started around 6:30. I took the new Yaris out for a spin - it's adorable and white and looks like a little turtle egg. I'll post a photo someday...maybe.

Anyway I was rocking out to some spanish music - getting pumped up to find me some turtle eggs. We keep the UTV in some shanty run-down house. I gassed her up and we hit the beach. The shoreline was teh first obstacle. The tide was so high. There were three sections of the beach. First the washed out sand line, then the sargassum swamp line, then loose hot sand. None of these descriptions are ideal for tracking Kemp's Ridleys.

I was two hours in of the 6 hour patrol when I felt absolutely useless! The terrain was so difficult to manage and I felt I was looking for a needle in a haystack. The tell-tale sign of a Ridley track is a series of 6-7cm check marks. And that's if you're lucky.

Near my breaking point I finally spotted tracks. WAHOO I wasn't useless! I called Jefe - not the responder for the day...oops. He sent Toni (the Ridley Guru) out to my site. I marked the tracks, took measurements, sketched the scene, took photographs, and directed traffic around the tracks. EVERYTHING I was supposed to do. Turns out...they weren't tracks. Great going. Toni came and withing five minutes she knew.

$%^&*(#$%*(

And to top it off the Jeep's radiator was steamin' like crazy. It was near death. So Toni booked it back along the beach and the vehicle died right on the road way. After an hour of waiting we decided to push the Jeep with the UTV for about 1 mile. It was a total success and kind of fun...but my bank account shall suffer the most now that I owe Toni a few beers.

I'm out of time but that's my story in brief.