The world according to me....

It all started out as a nice day. Wendy and I went to Swansboro to meet with Park Ranger Sean Mcelhone at Hammocks Beach State Park. He took us out to Bear Island, an undeveloped barrier island in between Bogue Banks and Onslow Beach, so we could bury some temperature dataloggers. It was a beautiful day and when we finished, we wistfully wondered if there was some way that we could stay longer. As we were going back to the boat dock, we had an excuse: we came across a dead stranded loggerhead. Just before we started to take measurements and open up the body cavity, some tourists came by to ask abotu the turtle (photo above). After we finished investigating the turtle and taking the eyeballs/flippers for Larisa, we headed back to Swansboro and eventually our offices. After dropping off Wendy at her home, I stopped by Radio Island to look for another reported stranding (no luck), but then got a call from Kristin: there was a live sick loggerhead in the surf on Atlantic Beach. I called Wendy and told her that I could meet her over there after dropping off the samples at the NOAA lab freezer. She called me back to say that the turtle was further out off the beach than she expected, and she could use some help to get the turtle out of the breakers. I met her and Kristin on the beach and we could see the turtle bobbing in the waves about 50 m out. We swam out to it and it was covered with barnacles, an indication that it was not doing well. I touched its front flippers, and it dove away slowly. We returned to the beach and asked Kristin if she had any rope. She found some and again Wendy and I swam out, this time about 100m from shore. I grabbed the end of her carapace and she wasn't strong enough to pull away. Slowly, Wendy and I steered her back to shore as we both gulped a fair share of seawater. Once we got there, Wendy and I agreed to meet over at CMAST in order that Craig Harms, a wildlife vet, could take a look at it before heading down to the Karen Beasley Turtle Rehabilitation Center on Topsail Island. Craig said the turtle looked sick but probably would recover with proper treatment.

Wendy made the trip to Topsail (one of her many trips there this week). I returned home to receive a message that there was a leatheback stranded on an inshore shoal just inside Cape Lookout bight. It was late afternoon and the NPS Park Rangers were already dealing with it. It was just a question about how we could possibly get out there to get samples, but more on that later.