He fakes, turns and shoots...Denied!

During the summer of 2001 I was working my second week of the season on Wassaw Island. Loggerhead nesting was appreciable, the bugs weren't bad and the plumbing rose up against us. My comrade, David Veljacic, and I discovered a blockage in our cabin (there was water pouring out of the kitchen sink and the shower).

We found the source, the gray water pipe (dispells shower and sink water) was plugged up at the drainage ditch. In ascertaining the situation we were savagely attacked by seed ticks (ticks as small as a printed period). The arachnids had even invaded our most treasured body regions.

Nonetheless, we tried to snake out the pipe but the tip of the snake broke off in the pipe. Then we tried to disconnect the entire plumbing line that we had just dug up. The pipe wouldn't budge. We had no choice but to hacksaw the pipe.

As we cut the pipe we heard an eerie sound, sort of a belch/growl hybrid. As we removed the cut pipe a gray mass of 10 years of soap scum, kitchen grease, sloughed skin, hair and whatever else imaginable rushed out of the pipe. All of these items seemed connected and moved down the hill to the ditch like a snake. We felt our stomachs curl as we looked down to find ourselves coated in the same slime and we weren't even wearing gloves or shirts and probably no shoes either. Anyways, we dubbed the beast "the Albino Ditch Monster".

We dug out the gray water ditch and connected and reburied a new pipe. The water was working well and the week moved along. Two days later the refrigerator (propane) caught on fire and lit up the cabin. Luckily the fire was put out immediately. I called Kris Williams and she arranged for a new refrigerator to be brought out in two days.

Two days later Kris shows up and offers me a night off. I would come back to the island the next day after I went home to get rest. The next day I return to the island and Kris tells me, "WE GOT A LEATHERBACK NEST LAST NIGHT AND WE TAGGED HER!"

The first documented leatherback nest on Wassaw since research began in 1973. All was not lost though. Her nest hatched and I got to see the hatchlings. They were smoked in a race by a nest of hatchling loggerheads.