Costa Rica Day 13: Surviving on less than 3h of sleep

Buenos diaz!! I feel so normz with just about 2.5h of sleep. Breakfast was served at 8am because Tasha had a hatchery shift at 9am. But i decided to wake up earlier anyway even though I only need to be at the station at 10am. 

Last night's patrol (12mn-5am) wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Yohan (the local guy/project assistant) walked at a comfortable pace. Both of our languages are limited so we ended up having choppy conversation but it wasn't complete silent or awkward beach stroll. Thank goodness. Breaks in between were about 20mins long and I fell asleep a few times on the beach while looking into the sky with a super duper round and bright moon, and some stars.

We did not spot any turtles coming onshore to lay eggs, but we spotted baby Ridleys making their way to the sea. The night was so dark that I didn't see them and almost caused their deaths. Yohan shouted "watch out!!" Hahaha that was the most natural sounding English coming from him without hesitation. Thank goodness I did not become a murderer of Ridley babies.


After having the deep fried pastry thing (with honey and sugar this time round) and coffee (essential!!!! esp when lack of sleep) for breakfast, I did my laundry.


At first, I was really excited when my host mom said today gonna use the washing machine for my clothes. It was amazing how a washing machine can exist in this kampong place.


Apparently, it was a super old school washing machine that was WAY BEYOND my imagination. I have to put water and soap powder in manually and it only takes 5mins to "wash". After that, I have to manually bring out the clothes and rinse it with water before putting the clothes back to the other compartment of the machine for dry tumbling. That process was also only 5 mins. All I had to do was to hang them out on the clothes wires in the backyard tied from tree to tree. That was also when I found my this house has a papaya tree, banana tree, and lemon tree.

Back to the washing machine, the water used to "wash" my clothes was BLACK! I don't know if that's from my clothes or from the dust of the machine. I won't want to know Hahaa. I had to take out the black water manually and throw it into the backyard soil/drain.

There you go. Laundry done within 20mins!!
Went to the station for some discussion again. But this time round was much better because it was held in an air-conditioned room. Nah, I'm just kidding. It's more on the reasons why people are doing tracking and tagging and studying/doing research on these wildlifes. 

Why are they important, why should we study/do research on them, and how do we go about capturing/tagging them? These were the questions discussed. 

Some pointers that I thought was interesting about salmons, other than flooding them in wasabi and soy sauce.

1. Keystone animals such as salmons can make or destroy an ecosystem and determine the health of the waterway.

2. Also to keep track of excess activities like overfishing - that will also have an impact on the ecosystem.



After discussion, Zoe was bugging Yami (the cook at the station) about some pastry men. And we ended up waiting at the station for the pastry truck to appear. They were pretty punctual ticos (slang for Costa Ricans). They have a saying called "tico time", which basically means being chillax and late for everything.

Anyway, all of us were so excited to see breads and cakes and doughnuts!!! I bought 3 pieces!!! Just take my money and gimme dem cakes!!!!!! They're not expensive also lah.

Look at those babies (cakes. Not turtles)!!! The Apple crumble cheesecake was yumz and the almond cookie tasted weird, but my host mom likes that the most. Haven't tried the banana choc cake though.

Accidentally "fell into" the sea before my Hatchery shift and the waves were so good!! The waves were really strong so we aren't allowed to swim at this beach according to the volunteers' policy. Oh well, our project leader Wade said it's alright if you accidentally fall into the sea. Well I did. Hiak.


This shift was really quick as Zoe and Daniel were sticking around and that really entertained Brad and I. My shift was from 3pm-6pm, but they had an excavation (sp?) scheduled at 4.30pm. It's to dig out the nests that already had hatchlings coming out to clear the nests, and also to check if there are any alive babies stuck under the sand. When they cleared the eggs/remaining egg shells, they will have to separate those full eggs and crack open them to see what's the problem that stopped its development. That was a depressing and gross process. I can see the running yolks for undeveloped eggs. Some of them we're at its 2nd and 3rd stages of development and died (mostly from bacteria). For these eggs, I can see the unformed fetus that is like the slimy flesh when people dissect animals. Yea I know it's gross. :( and damn those Vouchers!!! They just came in to feed on those unborn babies after we're done with our records. Urgh. Yea, they're just cleaning the beach for us but still... Urgh!

Next will be replacing the sand with clean sifted sand! They have this super big sift and two people had to hold onto each side and shake it mama shake it while the third person uses a shovel and shove wet sand onto the sift. I tried first and I freaking regretted it. It's so heavy!!! And I have blisters from the wood man. tough job tough job! Daniel took over me after I gave up and he was really werking it with Elmer (another local guy & project assistant). "It's just like baking a cake," quoted from Chef Daniel.

3-6pm shifts are the best when the beautiful sunset marks the end of my shift.

Ok done it is. Back at home had dinz and shared some cakes with my host mom. Really sleepy now but I wanna go to the station to use some wifi and talk to Charles!! I hope he's not asleep yet!!!