Photo(s) of the Day: Bizarre Breakfast Trio

Alli and I have decided that it would be cool to follow in the footsteps of a million bloggers and photographers, along with plenty of the dead tree media, and publish a photo or two on a somewhat daily basis. Now, we're not gonna do one or a couple everyday because as soon as I start slippin' then that'll reflect poorly on us, specifically my problems on being punctual. Brian time is always slower than Alli time. Most people (especially Alli!) won't argue this.

What we want to do is just share some visuals on everything that we do, see or deal with on a daily basis. This could be (duh!) pictures of sea turtles or anything else encountered here throughout our day: from branching corals and our lunch, to what we unload on the cargo boat, or even the pathetic dirt hole we unsuccessfully dug out that was originally going to be a new septic tank, but will now settle for only greywater. The point is to show you that life and work here is much more than turtles, sand, beaches and palm trees. Self-indulgent? Absolutely, but isn't that what blogging is all about! Enjoy the photos folks. Comments are always appreciated.

Just to start if off right and show that it ain't all about photos of cute-as-a-button baby turtles here at the JTP, the inaugural photo is of Alli indulging in the most absurd breakfast plate of all time. This took place about one week ago. On her plate is deep fried potatoes and leftover Nutella chocolate cake from Dani's birthday the night before. What she is about to take a bite of is egg salad on toast. So there you have it: fried taters, chocolate cake and egg salad. An oddball breakfast trio if there ever was one. Makan makan!

Down it! I'll admit cake and taters for breakfast was lovely, but egg salad too? No thanks. Never been a fan of that stuff, especially when its warm and reeks of mayonnaise. Alli loves it though! 

Juara Raking Team

Here at the JTP there is one piece of yard equipment everyone gets to know real well: the rake. After living in the Sonoran Desert for the last four-plus years I sorta forgot it existed. I mean, ain't many leaves to be getting rid of unless you live in manicured suburbia or atop one of the desert's sky islands. I don't think anyone will admit they regularly rake up those dinky mesquite tree leaves that fall to the ground.

I know what you're thinking. Is he really going to write an entire blog on raking leaves? Maybe I am, but I promise it'll be much more interesting that just your average, everyday yarn about raking. Or maybe it won't.

Alli don't mess around when it comes to raking! Sassy strokes.

When everything is open (no doors, flung windows) and you're sandwiched between the beach and jungle it's too damn easy for everything to get dirty, dusty and sandy very quickly. So of course when Alli and I first showed up here we had to jump right in when it came to getting the morning chores done. Wiping down tables and counters? Yeah that's okay. Changing the foot bucket water? Too quick. Sweeping the big house deck? Whatever, never been an enthusiastic broom fan. But getting my rake on while listening to UGK, Baby Huey or Funkadelic? You had me from the first morning JTP (or maybe the second, jet-lag is lame).

Uncle Rake Wants You!

The chain of events is simple and goes like this: most of our facility is located under trees, leaves fall from them and clutter the ground we're on. These leaves get everywhere, all over JTP's grounds, from the visitation area to around our chalets and gardens. A large amount of leaves awaits us every morning. Because of this we get our rake on, on the regular. Some people say cigarettes and coffee go hand-in-hand, but that's a basket of hogwash. Caffeine and raking are the duo, especially when sweet milk tops it up to a glorious trio. Side note: Malaysia loves the phrase "top up." It's like fill up or get more of something. Example: I have to "top up" minutes every two weeks on my cell phone here.

Putting leaves into piles around our fire pit and garden table area. I love piles, just ask Alli! She misses all the newspapers piles I had in the U.S. so much.

If we don't rake on a daily basis not only will the ground disappear under leaf litter, but our place will look rag-tag and half-assed. Since we are open to the public and are pretty much the only conservation organization on Tioman, it's vital we look good. Representing the face of sea turtles and trying to embody the novel idea of environmental stewardship doesn't work too well if your place of work resembles an unkempt dump.

That girl know how to sift! I'm going out on a limb here, but I think Alli fancies raking to Beyonce.

But the reasons to embrace raking just keep on coming. All the leaves are sifted to get rid of sand, collected in a wheelbarrow and thrown on top of our bursting-at-the-seams compost pile. We wait a little bit, stir that sucker every week or so, and after everything has taken its time to break down (including weeds, crusty old food and more) you can ram a shovel in the pile and bring out a nice heaping scoop of grade-A quality dirt. Alli loves this dirt. She plants new things in it, such as pumpkin, along with the standard-bearers here: okra and cucumbers. 

Our giant soft compost pile with the chicken coop in the background.

The cycle keeps on going. Leaves fall, we rake, we wait and then the dirt comes. The process is stupendous for us since soil quality here is not too, well, quality. We also have three compost boxes in effect now so that's speeds up the process of getting soil too. I must now take a moment to thank my parents who made me rake our yard in Maryland growing up all the time. I don't think I appreciated it back then as much as I do now. We've been joking about getting some volunteer shirts made here at the JTP that say: "I came for the turtles, but stayed for the raking." Now I should heed my own advice. Raking starts in about five hours. Time to go.

General Life Update and Snorkeling ol' Renggis

Please forgive my doozy of a gap in blog posts. We've been super slammed here at the turtle project. Turtle activity was bumpin' in the beginning of June (cue JTP Facebook plug here). To keep it short: nests on all three beaches plus a lot of hatchling action. Then Alli, Charlie and I took a trip to Mersing, the gateway town to Tioman on mainland Malaysia. It's the burg the ferry boat shuffles to and fro from. It was Alli and I's first trip off-island in exactly two months and it can be summed up quite succinctly: delicious Chinese pork, shopping for supplies, sweating in the heat (no jungle shade there) and a bad action movie in the hotel room.

Then we hopped back over to Tioman and a few days later 19 Singaporean polytechnic students came to JTP for 4 nights. It was a total blast. We cleaned Jo's tank with them (complete with sea turtle diarrhea), did a bunch of manual labor, taught them how to rake leaves and whack wood with a machete, took 'em snorkeling (conclusion: rough waves plus first time snorkelers equals Alli and I having our hands full, but I did scope my first ever Cuttlefish!), heard them scream multiple times in response to the spiders running around in their chalets, and totally fooled them all into thinking our plastic turtle we have was a nesting female who came up at early afternoon. Plus tons of other rockin' activities. A solid bunch of city kids who got a all-too-short respite from the urban world.

That's ol' Renggis off in the sea in the background there, our destination.

Now to make things a little confusing the rest of this blog post is a narrative of a snorkeling trip Allison and I did over one month ago (15 May) to ol' Ringey aka Renggis Island. A tiny rocky nubbin,' which is located on the other side of Tioman just south of Tekek. The trip was phenomenal and began with a sweaty jaunt from our chalet to the beach (at the behemoth Berjaya resort) where we swam out to the island from. But first we had to read the sign and take notice of the monstrous sea urchin. In reality there was more than one in the sea, actually there was a ton. Lost in translation for sure.

Oh yes, beware! I love that the words tell us to watch out for one, but the pictures three.

Eyes on the prize. View from the beach where we swam out to get our snorkel on.

Top photo: More Rengiss, which below is also my shoreline hair twin for the day.

The swim out was filled with urchins and dead coral unfortunately. I've heard the corals here 20 years ago were still full of life, but now it's just an urchin, rock, sand and giant purdy clam party. *** Remember: all these photos enlarge if you give them a click. Also, a larger Facebook photo album can be found here.

Urchins and clams, from far away and close up.

After a solid chunk of time we made it out to the island and it was a fish frenzy from the get go. A truly large number of fish were swimming all around us, but the reason for this was very lame. Some boat drivers who shuttle tourist snorkelers out there feed the fish sandwich bread so when we first arrived Alli and I were caught up in the scaly barrage. They were coming at us from all angles. I've never been surrounded by so many fish in my life. Some were bumping into my mask and legs. You could see them gobbling down the soggy bread. Alli had to break free and get some space. I don't blame her. But the underwater terrain around the island was gorgeous. Shallow water and coral everywhere you looked.

Sassy Tern on a boat/swimming platform.

Floating with the fish, bout to get surrounded by these bread deprived creatures.

Underwater coral scenery.

Eventually we broke free of the bread fiesta and boat platforms and did a loop around the joint. All kinds of fish were seen: several species of parrotfish, Bird wrasse, Orangespine unicornfish (what a name eh?), Titan triggerfish, False Clown anemonefish (made famous by Nemo), large schools of needlefish, Virgate rabbitfish and many more! A bountiful loop I must say. The shallow water and abundant sunshine made for stellar visibility.

Top two photos: ain't no party like a parrotfish party cause a parrotfish party don't stop!

Grumpy False Clown anemonefish who were not content with us up in their space. One of the best photos by far from the day.

Orangespine Unicornfish - what a name and what a creamsicle colored spot by the tail too.

After our loop we chilled out on the swimming platform for awhile soaking up some sun. A few boats with folks pulled up when we were there. It's amazing how quick they snorkel, as some only stuck around for 15 minutes or so. A few of the snorkelers couldn't even swim but luckily had PFDs on. But even with the floatation help they still struggled. Basically without it they would have drowned. I thought I was going to have to bust out some of my old lifeguard moves for one lady who could not move forward at all and seemed to be drifting away. Thanks goodness she caught the rope and pulled herself back. Gotta love people who jump in the ocean over beds of coral that can't swim!

More shallow corals spinning out and doing their thing.

We plopped back in the water for one more look around, which proved to be the right call. Plenty more parrotfish were spotted, along with a large barracuda and two Blacktip reef sharks, one of which swam by me just a few meters away! Can't beat an ending like that. It was Terminator 2 good. After another dry out session we swam back to shore, taking the more direct route and saving a ton of time. After over two months on Tioman now this spot ranks pretty high on our favorite list. Thankfully neither of us was assaulted by "the urchin." We'll be back again sometime in the future. And anyone out there who comes for a visit, we'll be taking you here too. That's all that's fit to type at the moment.

Ya Got to Keep Ya Feet Up... I think Tupac rapped something similar to this.

Sometimes fish gotta photo bomb too.

Hallelujah for Hatchlings

Alli had been staring at the sand for awhile. It was moving and making some noises here and there. She knew what was going on. I had strolled down to the beach at the end of the work day to take a swim, rest and read some book. I never got around to any of those activities. I then preceded to stare at the sand with Alli for another 30-40 minutes. I then knew what was coming too: hatchling Hawksbill sea turtles! The inaugural batch of 2012.

We did this for awhile. What can I say we were hog-wild for hatchlings!

*** Note: all photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

The only problem was this was the first time Alli and I had ever been around when the babies make their way up out of the sand. We didn't know if they'd take another 10 minutes or 4 hours. Before sunset for photos? Takeout dinner in the hatchery? Sprinting pee breaks? Vital questions we had no answers for. We were glued to the wiggling sand, continually watching it move about. You could hear the hatchlings rumbling below. Amazingly these tiny creatures (the shell is around 3.5 cm long) can take a day or two to dig out a nest 40 cm below the surface. That don't sound too jolly, but we had a feeling they were bout to hit pay dirt, or in this case, outside air.

Are them turtle heads poppin' up!?! Come on buddies...

For the record: this all took place on 10 May, I've just been a bad chronological blogger and haven't posted it yet. I'll try to be more timely, but one of the things you definitely learn in journalism school: always push the deadline. 

Moving on. After over an hour of staring one lil' bugger broke free. Another head poked out, a new flipper popped up and then it was a full-on turtle stampede. Flailing around and scurrying everywhere the hatchlings kept coming, like deranged Black Friday shoppers blood-thirsty for flat screens and video games. I can't undersell the moment. It was frickin' incredible. Watching a boil (who came up with this term!?!) of sea turtles come up like that is a surreal sight. And they just keep coming.

The winner of the grand sand race finally shows! First one is out.

After picking our jaws up and toning down the exciting expletives we kept repeating Alli and I started to transport the babies into a large cooler, counting as we plopped the manic turtles down. Dani and Izati were there too. One cool sight: while the turtles were still in the mesh net milling about, all were trying to get out and go toward the ocean. None were facing land or the jungle!

 

Can't stop, won't stop! More and more making their way to the top.

When all were accounted for 117 had made the vertical journey out of 140 eggs. That's a solid 83% hatching success rate, pretty dang good for Hawksbills. We then measured the length and width of 10 hatchlings and secured them in a huge tub. When you got 6 cats on the premises you need security.  In the days that followed another 5 made the journey out and then one loner a few days after that, pushing out total to 123.

Counting babies and into the cooler they go!

These babies came from a nest on Penut, a beach south of Juara Bay we monitor by boat. At 1am that same night we loaded up and headed out to release them. We always release from the location they were found. Some rocky reef was exposed on our walk in even though it was high-tide. These rocks are slippery. I was the one with the cooler full of hatchlings. I was concentrating a lot to not be the late-night dufus that dropped the babies. Nobody likes that dude or dudette.

Alli lookin' good with a turtle...

... and this dude lookin' creepy.

We got in position. Found a nice spot on the beach. Alli positioned the cooler, tipping it over just enough that they exploded out! Flippers gone wild, maneuvering over sand then rocks, but after that? Only ocean. Into the surf and disappear they did.

Above: the entire crew before release. Alli: set them free girl!

The hatchlings were released about 9 meters from the water line. Most of 'em took about 1.50 minutes to get into the ocean. One slow poke (he had some issues moving around a large rock) dragged behind, but after 4.30 minutes even this tortoise in the gang got to the finish line. Our job was done. They made it into the water. Hopefully in 20 years or so they'll make it back.

Goodbye Toilet Paper, Hello Wet Toilet!

I haven't used toilet paper in over 6 weeks. That's right, 6 weeks.

Ever since we exited Singapore and entered Malaysia toilet paper in my world has gone the way of the Dodo. Extinct. Why you ask? The wet toilet. It's quite the change from U.S. bathroom procedure, but I'm not gonna lie, I don't miss it at all. It's actually completely different from Western bathrooms in general. Every country I had been to before rocks the TP. Mexico, Canada, a hodge podge of east and west European countries, plus Singapore, too.

The hiney hose with a Western style toilet.

Now at the turtle project we have western bathrooms and TP, but I have chose not to partake. I figure we're going to be in Malaysia, Indonesia and other nearby places for the foreseeable future so I might as well get into it. Question number two: if you don't use toilet tissue then what? A hose that sprays water. Simple as that. Juara has a steady and safe supply of water - originating from a river up in the jungle hills here on Tioman. So there's no use for bottled water, we drink it straight from the tap. We got a lot of water, which is splendid: we consume it, take showers with it, keep the garden satisfied, and rinse my derriere too. Full disclosure: this column is just on my bathroom preferences, Alli asked me to leave her out of it. No turtle talk today people, the bathroom is the center of attention!

But that's it. Rinse off with water and it all goes down the drain. Here at the project we have western toilets, which enables you to sit and take a load off, but more commonly around Malaysia they have squat toilets. That's a hover-over-it situation. No seat to relax on.

Haven't seen you in awhile toilet paper.

My fondness for the wet toilet (and its accompanying hiney hose for lack of a more proper term) got me thinking. Could this work in the U.S.? For sure the idea would gross people out and toilet paper is so ingrained into our psyche that it would be an uphill battle to change ways. We're so used to it by now we even have a variety of TP lingo: double roll, two-ply, four-ply, and so on and so on. For the last four-plus years I had been living in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona. Is there room for the wet toilet in a water starved state? I don't know. My past residence of Colorado would be a tricky sell as well, considering the freezing temps and lack of water. In my childhood state of Maryland then? Maybe. I think in some parts it could be a sweet solution to the using too much paper problem.

Enter globalized commerce. Indonesian rainforest has been hacked down in the last few decades by paper companies at an alarming rate. Guess what one of their main products is? Well what lives in those rainforests? Besides unique herps, pretty birds, beneficial bugs, you got some mega-predators like tigers, which are very endangered. The dominoes fall like this: trees get cut, tigers lose ground, people get TP. But it's Western countries buying the toilet paper, along with other products (read the whole report here; more shorter news items here and here). The reality is never that simple though. Logging in the U.S. has been shut down entirely in some areas (SW and NW states especially) because of endangered species (the Northern Spotted Owl in particular). But does that just push the threat to biodiversity somewhere else? As I mentioned before, the globalized world is a strange beast. I didn't really mean to go off on a tangent about deforestation, toilet paper, endangered species and the economic engines of this millennium, but I did. Something to chew on eh?

Wait a sec!?! How'd I end up in a blog post about toilets. You gotta read to find out folks!

In the meantime, I am a wet toilet convert. I keep thinking how easier Alli and I's mayonnaise malaise of 2010 would have been if the wet toilet was there for me. I wish I had discovered it sooner. But just before I turned 28, I did. That's a-okay with me.

Funny Field Work Follies (and the letter F goes wild!)

Field work, just like life, can be spectacular, routine, drab, infuriating or just plain silly. Sometimes when you're on point and luck is rolling the dice with you, I've seen things that have gave me goosebumps. Witnessed events that have caused me to yell out joyful curse words and pump my fist, Arsenio Hall style. A few weeks before we departed I was lucky enough, after following her for 1.5 hours, to watch a Gila monster we were radio tracking dig out a juvenile Cottontail rabbit nest and scarf down some furry youngsters. Incredible. I was on cloud nine for the entire ordeal. That's about as amazing a day you can have in the field.

The female Gila on her way to finding a Cottontail rabbit nest. This is one healthy lizard.

But then there's days where all you do is sweat and are exhausted, you forget to take a specific data point, leave all the vital gear you need at home or totally just blow it. The key to it all: laughing at yourself when you mess up. A lot. And then making sure you don't do the same idiotic thing twice. I once dropped my keys out of my backpack while tracking a Gila monster at night by myself. Over 3 hours later I found them. Never again have I pulled that move.

Charlie (face bomb!) cruising the boat to Munjur beach at the sun sets on Tioman. Juara Bay is in the background.

That being said, Charlie and I recently spent two nights in a row camping (err, maybe being on a stakeout is a more appropriate term) on Munjur beach in anticipation of a re-nesting Green sea turtle. Hmmmm, I just didn't do any foreshadowing about how this endeavor worked out. Munjur is one of two uninhabited beaches we monitor that are directly south of Juara Bay here. It's probably about a 15 minute boat ride. So let's see: camping near the beach in hope of finding a nesting Green turtle so we can measure the mama and tag her plus get a nest for our hatchery, yup I can get to that. Cue Ziggy Stardust lyrics though: it ain't (that) easy!

Will Smith bearing down on Munjur Beach, one of the 3 sea turtle nesting beaches we monitor daily.

The first night started off with a solid sign: two turtles were mating near the beach as we rode in. For the record: JTP's boat is named Will Smith. I would have gone with Jeff Goldblum, but that's another story. We then walked in with our gear and started looking for a place to camp. We chose some ground on the north end of the beach between the high tide line and end of the jungle. More sweet news: an Oriental Whip Snake (Ahaetulla prasina, AHPR) greeted us in the leaves. It's a graceful snake that moves through trees and other vegetation while looking for lizards and frogs to munch on. First time I've seen this one. Only bummer news is I forgot my camera. So all the photos on this blog are from the second night.

A gorgeous underneath view of the Oriental Whipsnake (Ahaetulla  prasina, AHPR).  These guys can be a variety of colors, but this one was like Laffy Taffy green.

Overhead view. Sweet view of its wrapped around the branch and leaves.

Well, hammocks got set up, a small, hidden fire burned, and then Mega-moon came out around 22:30 hours. Talk about bright! The beach was lit up for real, for real. To miss a turtle on this beach would be tough, but alas, we did. As high tide rolled in we got sleepy. Charlie dozed off and I fell asleep for about 10 minutes. After waking up I had a weird feeling of panic that maybe we missed her. So I scampered down the rocks and started walking the sand. The strech in front of us was track free but as I walked up to the southern end of the beach, which of course turtles don't visit too often and you can't see from our makeshift campsite, two sets of turtle tracks were there! One for the way in, the other on the way out. No turtle. No nest. She came up, just like the day before, moseyed around and then headed back to the ocean. I woke up Charlie, we checked out the scene some more, hung our heads in despair as sand flies bit us on the beach, and then decided it's a wrap. We swam out to the boat and got back to JTP around 2am.

North end of Munjur at sunset.

Not to be defeated, we were very sure that after coming ashore two nights in a row this mother turtle was ready to drop a clutch on the third night. Back to the camping spot. More jolly times at Munjur! This time I remembered my camera (and binos!), but forgot shoes. Walking on wet coral and rock is not a skill I have mastered yet out here. It took awhile for me to even walk in with our gear. Looking at the photo of low tide you can understand why. Back to the same spot. I had a warm and fuzzy feeling the turtle was gonna show. I searched for more snakes after the sun went down, finding another AHPR in the trees. Then we scarfed some take-out noodles, shot the shit and waited on the tide. The moon came out. No turtle seen. I had a feeling again I needed to get down to the beach. With no red light on (we were being extra careful to not spook the turtle) I made my way and in the first minute I saw tracks on the stretch of beach in front of us. One set. Then noise. Tossed sand and the movement of a flipper. She must be starting to dig her nest! It's always feels glorious when you find what you set out for.

Low tide, slippery rocks, sharp coral and an uncoordinated Brian make for slug-like walking. But I got no open gashes on my legs so that was a plus.

I woke Charlie up and we crept back. She was still flinging sand so after checking out the rest of Munjur we took a seat away from her on the beach. She continued to fling sand. Time passed. Chit-chat here and there. Silence for a little while and then I heard a noise behind us. Holy Toledo that's a turtle heading back to sea. She ran into our cooler we use for the eggs and almost head butted Charlie's backbone. She was on the move and we misjudged her big time! Her nest was layed and she was covering it up when I first saw her. Maybe we should have at least shined some light on her once. We thought about tagging her on the way back, but decided not to. She was ready to get back in the water and make us feel like morons. I couldn't help but laugh. Two nights of camping and no nest collected, no measurements made and no tags placed on her flippers. We laughed a ton and she swam away. I hope she was chuckling too.

Our improvised (and in the end failed) stakeout location. That piece of driftwood  we found made for a lovely bench though. 

Since midnight was on deck and the tide was high we decided to call it, bail on camping and boat back to the JTP. Swimming out to the boat, trying not to slice my foot open in the dark water, I couldn't stop smiling. I knew we'd get the nest in the morning so no worries about that (yeah, Izati brought the eggs back, 98 total). I had to admire how well we succeeded in failing. I think we'll do a few things differently next time. As Will Smith motored back under the night sky I didn't feel too much like he did at the end of Independence Day. Heck, I wasn't even feeling much like Will Smith at all, since he's usually doing everything right and saving the world from imminent demise (ID4, iRobot, Bad Boys, MIB, the list goes on and on). But at least we gave everyone else here something to joke about for awhile.

A Turtle at our Doorstep

In the early morning on 27 April, Joris (a volunteer from Holland) spoke through our open room window and asked if we wanted to see a turtle. Well, it was about 2am so at first I had no idea what was happening. After I got my bearings and stopped dreaming about the new Neil Young and Crazy Horse album (just guessing on that one), I realized hell yeah I wanna see a turtle. I tried to get Alli up, but the lady was too sleepy this time around.

Back to the sea, trudging along!

The lucky part: this very wide Green turtle mama decided to nest right at the beach in front of the JTP. Boom-shack-alacka! Like NBA Jam used to say. By the time she had been spotted she already had her eggs covered up and was going nutty with her front flippers. Sand was moving. She was only a couple meters from our hatchery so there was no point in digging up the nest and moving it there. We left it in-situ. We missed our window to tag her front flippers so hopefully on the return visit we can get that done.

Dani and I measuring the outside width of her tracks after she left the beach. I a like this photo!

She should return in the next 4-5 days. It'll be her second time coming back to Mentawak Beach so we don't know for sure what her re-nesting interval is gonna be yet . The portly turtle gave us our 8th nest of the year. The ocho.

The in-situ nest right in front of the JTP.

On her saunter back to the ocean is when we measured her shell, took some photos and then bid her adieu. She took 15 minutes to get back to the water - entering just a smidge before 3am. She probably first came ashore right around midnight. Her tracks were measured and shortly later I was back in bed. Whether Neil Young crept back into my dreamscape I can't recall. He definitely wasn't in Alli's. She hates that dude (an unfortunate trait I think she inherited from her Mom).

Her nest in relation to where our hatchery is.

And her tracks the next day before her mesh enclosure went up.