Manjula goes blogging...

It was a very hectic night in Bahia, Brazil. Matthew absolutely needed two fresh loggerhead clutches and blood samples to take back with him to Toronto early next morning. It was a hi-tech operation - people were deployed on three/four beaches, some of us rushed from beach to beach, and everyone was in cell phone contact. Alex, one of the station managers, and I were at the very far end of a beach, when we received a phone call from an intern about a loggerhead nesting on his stretch. His beach was a few kilometers away and we had to get there in time to collect the blood sample. So we started running - the tide was high, the sand was soft, the night was dark. Out of breath, we exited the beach and continued running through a posh, condominium complex to get to our car. There was a shout from the dark somewhere. There was too much adrenaline rushing through me to really stop and make sense of what was said. But I came to a halt as I heard a loud “stop” from Alex. A guard approached us with a pointed gun. Then the words made sense, “Stop! or I will shoot! Stop! or I will shoot!” Wasn’t I glad that Alex was there! Panting we explained that we were not robbers, that we were on a very honorable mission for this famous scientist from Toronto! The guard let us go, we got to the turtle in time, we were slapped around by the turtle some but we got our blood sample, we got the eggs and the blood to Matthew in time…but we couldn’t stop talking about how Matthew’s project almost got us shot!