Camilla in the World: August 2011

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Turtle Watch

The other week I did something interesting. Four Seasons Nevis is doing their part in helping Sea Turtle Conservancy and when the hotel asked for volunteers to do turtle walk at night I was not slow to respond!

On top of needing volunteers they needed someone to drive a manual truck, in case we would find a turtle. As I do drive manual, I was designated the turtle driver!

The Truck

We met up at the hotel at 9pm with David, Dan and their staff, Tara from our NY office and a few more volunteers, then we headed to Lover's Beach by the airport. At Lover's Beach we divided up the team in two and then we walked up and down the beach looking for turtles, and/or tracks. We were hoping to spot a turtle coming up to nest, and then on it's way back to the ocean we would capture it so the team could tag it and put a tracking device on it in for the 2011 Tour de Turtles Marathon!

We did not spot a turtle that night, however, around 11:30pm we got a call that another group, at another beach had spotted one, and we headed that way to assist.

So I drove over with the old truck, got stuck in the sand, got the guys to help me out of the sand, and then I got to see the turtle! It was a beautiful Hawksbill Sea Turtle. When she was done nesting, we got her in a box we had with us and brought her back to the truck and headed back to the Four Seasons Resort! It must have been the most precious cargo I ever transported! We checked in the turtle to our beach front Cabana where she spent a relaxing night before being tagged with a satellite transmitter. She was also named Paradise by the sponsor, Four Seasons Resort, Nevis!

Paradise being released

I will definitely follow Paradise's journey in the 2011 Tour de Turtles (Tracking Paradise)!

Cheers my friends!

Camilla

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Before the Storm

Nothing unusual with tropical storms and hurricanes in the Caribbean. And nothing different when we had the warning about Emily coming our way.

Usual preparation is getting water, some food that will last, make sure there are enough batteries and candles (you should always have candles and batteries as the power goes off on a regular basis around here). Then of course the preparation at the hotel..

This time I got to do something different though. Miles were taking up his sail boat, Feisty, on land and I got to come along on the ride. We set sail towards St. Kitts on a beautiful Sunday. The trip over took about 3 hours, and I was so excited as I did not get sea sick on the way over! That would have been a long trip otherwise, for all of us!

When we finally got outside the place where they take the boat up, we had to wait for ever. The process was not fast, and I'm glad we were not out last minute and a big hurricane coming, because then we would have had a bumpy ride on Feisty. It took for ever... just waiting. Luckily I had good company of Miles, Peter, Alicia and Sara.

X amount of beers later and it was our turn to be pulled up. It was an amazing process, well, at least for me that has never seen anything like this before. We pulled up the boat in between 2 slots, and then this machine came with 2 straps, and lifted us up. Then we drove across the road and put Feisty in the ground.

The trip was not over here.. We then had to get back to Nevis, and the last Seabridge (the boat over between St. Kitts & Nevis) left at 6pm... And by that time we just got the boat up!

After some waiting around, a very interesting taxi ride to Reggae Beach, and a seriously fast boat trip, we finally made it back to Nevis around 10pm!