Bubbles in the Bathtub

Our options were a bit limited since we started looking late and the week we wanted to get away happened to coincide with the Independence Day holiday, which apparently is the busiest beach season in these parts. Where ever we stayed also had to accommodate two dogs. Eventually I found a nice spot that happened to be on Topsail Island, home of the world famous Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center. Matthew Godfrey was also only a hour or so away and he started planning my vacation for me as soon as he heard I was coming down.

Given the conditions I began to notice a pattern to my so-called "vacations". Despite never planning to see turtles whilst vacating (this trip was an exception), for one reason or another sea turtles seem to always end up as part of the vacation.

It all started with my Luna de Miel in Venezuela...

My new wife and I spent part of our trip at a resort near Morrocoy. We hadn't planned to SCUBA dive, but were inspired after snorkeling around some of the nearby cays. The hotel told us about a couple of French ex-pats that ran a dive shop in an adjacent village. So we gave them a call and the guy that ran the shop came over and picked us, took us by his shop to pick out equipment, then took us out in his boat to a cay that was a little farther offshore than the ones we had been going to. He led us around the cay (underwater) and, not a big deal, but we saw a couple of juvenile hawksbills along the way. Notable to me because that was the first time I had seen a hawksbill and also the first time I had seen turtles while diving. The coolest part though was seeing a sea snake swimming along a sandy bottom towards the end of the dive.

Dry Tortugas...

This was probably the first real vacation my wife and I took together (before the kids). We decided to go to Key West. I had been out to the Dry Tortugas before, for a summer marine biology class at the University of Florida, so I told my wife about it and we brought our camping gear along just incase we decided to go. We did end up going. They have a couple of ferry boats and a sea plane that take people there. They also have camp sites on the main key outside of Fort Jefferson that are first come first served. There was a camp site available so we stayed a couple of nights. So we were snorkeling our first afternoon there and we came across a nurse shark. I noticed that it had a tag on it, so I asked at the Fort (there are National Park Service employees stationed at the Fort year round) to see if anyone was keeping track of tagged sharks. They put me in touch with the right person and we got started talking about marine biology and such things. When they found out that I was a turtle biologist they said I needed to meet their turtle guy Russell Reardon. So we met up with Russ later that day, talked turtle a bit, and he invited us to go cay hoping with him the next morning. It was towards the end of the nesting season and he was checking hatched nests for any stragglers. The really cool thing was that we had no way to get around and otherwise would never have gotten to see anything but Garden Key. Also, he let us take hot showers in his quarters and had a supply of Shiner Bock in his fridge :) And another landmark, we did find a few stragglers and this was my first time seeing hatchlings. Thanks Russ!

Bald Head Island, North Carolina...

Before going to BHI this past week (story to come) I had been there on two previous occasions for vacation. Both times my inlaws had rented a house there for a week and we just tagged along. I didn't get to see any turtles the first time, but I sent my wife and inlaws on the BHIC turtle walk while I watched our daughter (no son yet on that trip). The next time my wife and I took our daughter on the turtle walk. Lucy Hawkes was the island naturalist at the time, and Matthew had cornered me into giving a turtle talk as well. After my talk and Lucy's turtle talk we waited for the BHIC interns to report any nesting activity. We didn't have to wait long and my daughter got to see her first nesting turtle!

The exception to the turtle/vacation rule has been our occasional vacations to Balboa Island, California. These usually fall in the winter, so since there aren't likely to be many turtles in the area in the first place and we go when it's cold, the likelihood of seeing a turtle is pretty low. It is also one of the few corners of the world with any turtles that I don't know any turtlers, so no insider information either.

All of my other "vacations" have been somehow associated with work or school, and while I've seen turtles (Hawaii, USVI, Costa Rica), they don't really count.

In any case, now I am back. I had intended to blog while on vacation. Well, that's not exactly true. I actually flip-flopped on whether or not to even bring my laptop until the day before we left. But I just couldn't take it. I set up a dial-up account the day before leaving and struggled along with the slower-than-I-am-used-to connection :) I held off on blogging because as it turns out I forgot the cable that connects my digital camera to my laptop so I couldn't include any of the photos that go along with my stories. Vacation is over and now I've download all my pics, so here come the stories...