Vanuatu STRP4

 1/12/12023 Wednesday/Thursday We were able to make it out the nesting beach last night.  We worked hard walking the beaches but were not able to find any tracks. (at about 0100 hours we all settled in for a one hour rest/sleep.  During the one hour period a turtle did come up on the beach and immediately turned around and went back in... within about 10 meters of our sleeping area.  I don't know if we could have stopped it even if we had seen it.  Nonetheless, it was sort of a bummer that we didn't get that one.  We walked the beaches twice after that but there were no other tracks so she apparently didn't come up to nest.  Hopefully, she will try again tonight. Below are pictures - just uploaded without comment because of time constraints: The fruit platter at lunch. lunch time. Checking out the surf on Wed. afternoon before we decided that it was safe to make the trip to the nesting beaches. Loaded and headed out to the nesting beaches- around 1500 ...

 1/11/2023 We awoke to a beautiful sunny day and most everyone had a good nights sleep.  We had breakfast and Ms Jim and Francis decided to make a shore based scuba dive while most of the rest of the team did some homework and rested. We will keep everyone informed about the proposed beach trip tonight. Here is a ROUGH video about whate we see on our snorkeling and diving trips.  When I have enough bandwidth I will clean it up more. Video of snorkeling and scuba diving at Tranquility Resort :  

 1/10/23 We made it to breakfast at around 0900 this morning and then we went on a scuba dive to the east of TR.  It was a fund dive and we found quite a few new and interesting critters.  I have put together a video of our previous two dives but it is nearly impossible to upload it because of the slow speed of our internet connection.  You will get to see them eventually, for sure. This afternoon, we hired a small boat to take us out of the pass between Moso Island and Lalepa Island to see how the surf was.  There is still a significant swell and, consequently, we elected to wait one more day to let the surf subside.  That will give us Wednesday and Thursday nights to do our work and all we can do is hope that there will be some turtles there. Disappointing but we are coping.   We are hiking to sunset beach before dinner (some of the team are remaining behind and resting.  The hike to and back from sunset beach took nearly two hours and was ...

 1/9/2023 We were out late on the beach north of TR until around 1200 hours.  We practiced some bush trail walking, and walking the beach looking for turtle tracks.  We didn't expect to see any on this beach but it was still a good practice session for walking the beaches (when we can get there). We got back at the resort around 0100 h and everyone slept in pretty late.  After a nice lunch, we decided to get in one more dive and went on a 1430 dive to White rock.  It was a fun dive and everyone had great stories to tell about what they saw on the dive. We were going to go out to the beaches again tonight but it was raining really had and there was some lightening and thunder so we decided to get some rest.  We are hoping to make it out to the nesting beaches tomorrow but it is still a bit of a long-shot because, although the wind should have abated by then, the surf will probably still be pretty high.  We will take a look tomorrow afternoon.

 1/8/2023 We woke up this moring to some sunshine and a beautiful day.  The girls in Fare 5 continued to have issues with running water, spiders and rats... Ms. Jim diplomatically told the managers (Finn and Maria) about all of the issues and they graciously agreed to move the team to two better Fares (numbers 2 and 3). Everyone is releived that they will be able to sleep in a less crowded more friendly environment.  Happy campers, so to speak.  We are going to hike to a beach that is close by in the hopes that we may find a nester coming up tonight.  The chances are minimal but it is better that sitting around doing nothing.  There has been nesting there before! After snorkeling from the Fare to breakfast, the team did some cleaning up and getting ready for our 1030 dive at Coral Gardens.  We had a wonderful dive with lots of gorgeous coral, fish and other invertebrates. After the dive we had lunch, helped clean up the dive gear and (with great enthus...

1/7/2023 - Saturday  We are hoping that we will be able to get to the nesting beaches this evening and do our first night of surveys.  The surf is still up a bit so we will have to go around and see how it is.  We will pack and ready ourselves for the trip and hope for the best. We did see some sun for a little while this morning but the sky has since covered over and we are expecting a wet night on the beach should we be able to get there. In the meantime, the team will do some more snorkeling and u/w photography and, perhaps, some paddle boarding. Ready for the morning snorkel. It is 1800 h on Saturday and we are still here at Tranquility.  After deliberating with the villagers and our colleague Francis Hickey, we decided that the wind and surf were still too high to go out to the nesting beaches.  In fact the next two days appear to be much the same and we are hoping to be able to get out to the beaches on Tuesday when the wind shifts and decreases from NW at...