Manjula goes blogging...

Another green turtle capture season has started up in San Diego Bay for the La Jolla-based Sea Turtle Research Program. And I have been learning all about nets—undoing knots, setting nets in the water, disentangling captured turtles, cleaning, babying, and storing nets—under the patient and ever-encouraging guidance of Jeff Seminoff. Net handling is an art, I am discovering and learning…

And then there is the excitement of catching a turtle—on our last trip we caught two 200+kg females and we were at our physical limits trying to haul these big girls into our little skiff. These captured turtles are then taken ashore to a sliver of “beach” to check for tags, collect data, attach transmitters...

And at the end of the day when the nets are pulled in, the boat is out of the water and back on the trailer, and we prepare to drive home sometimes muddy, wet, sun burnt, and cold, a feeling of happy lassitude settles…and in the far distance, across the bay, the Mexican flag flaps in the breeze at the border, and mountains rise into Mexican skies…