The Mystery of the Disappearing Turtle

We’re beginning to settle into a routine here on Utila. While we’re essentially doing the exact same work as at Cuero, the mechanics of it look very different. Instead of walking the beach for 6-7 hours each night and covering around 8 miles, we sit--literally--on the beach for 10 hours. The main stretch of beach that we’re monitoring is all of 30 meters long and takes a grand total 2:16 minutes to walk (yes, we timed it). There is a longer stretch of beach which we walk twice a night, usually, and takes about 15 minutes to cover. We bring out sheets to lay on and iPods and Kindles to entertain ourselves and sit on the beach thinking up everything one could do with 10 free hours if they weren't in the middle of the night on a beach in Honduras. 

Now, on to the subject of the titular turtle. Yes, we had a turtle last night! It crawled onto the beach around midnight last night and alerted us to its presence by creating a ruckus in the woods near our "camping" spot. We quickly got data loggers and sheets ready and watched quietly while the turtle dug a hole for a nest. Then, it appeared that the turtle had given up the idea of nesting and was going to crawl back to the ocean (a behavior which is called a false crawl). We began looking to stop the turtle so that we could put a flipper tag on her before she left. That was when the turtle, easily a 100 pound female Hawksbill, disappeared completely. Yes, as far as the poor researchers are concerned, this particular sea turtle has vanished from the face of this earth. As Lindsey said, this was a development we weren't expecting.