Manjula goes blogging...

Every nesting beach has its own personality, and certainly Tortuguero was unique in several ways. But one aspect that impressed me was the dramatic change during the heavy November rains. The beach wasn’t eaten away by the raging surf, instead large sections of it turned into a sandy soup. Walking on the beach at this time had its hazards - the first time my leg was unexpectedly sucked into the beach up to the knee, I had to dig it out with great effort and Luciano laughed really hard and said he had only seen this happen to cars! Several nest excavations had to be abandoned because all we could find was a soupy mess of sand, water, egg shells and rotten eggs, and with the sides of the nest chamber constantly collapsing, it was impossible to tell if we had excavated the entire nest. The water level eventually subsided, but not without lowering the hatching success of many nests that were laid during the end of the season…