Turtle Summer - Week 4

July 16, 2023 - July 22, 2023

My fourth week started with yet another day off! My friends and I rented a car so we could drive up to the Cave of Zeus. We had seen some beautiful pictures online of a cave with stalagmites and stalactites all around, so we decided to give it a shot.

In the car and up the mountain we went. We had taken a different route than Google maps had recommended since it seemingly went all the way around the mountain and it really seemed inefficient. We found out why this was soon enough - the trail up the mountain could hardly be called a road and at certain points we were afraid to get stuck, break the car, or fall into a ditch. Fortunately, we eventually made it to the Cave of Zeus and it was…. kinda disappointing. The pictures we had seen of the stalagmites and stalactites had been taken in a different cave that some people also seemed to call the Cave of Zeus. So after a quick peek in the cave we drove of to a nearby town called Anogia to have some lunch in Taverna Arodamos. The food was great and the people kind, and after having calmed down from the intense journey, we headed back to camp.

Cave of Zeus

According to the myth, Cronos had eaten all his and Rhea’s babies because of a prophecy saying one of them would overthrow them. Rhea hid Zeus in this cave when he was born because she did not want him to get eaten too. Eventually he did in fact overthrow his father.

After the day off, our shifts continued as usual except that from this week on we had a new shift: putting up shading. So far we had spent evenings making shading out of bamboo beach mats and bamboo sticks, or repared the ones used previous years. Now that the first nest of the season was close to hatching it was time to put them up. The purpose of the shading is to guide the hatchlings to the sea despite all the bright lights that may be on the opposite site (they follow the brightest light, which used to be the sea because it reflects any light around, however, these days it’s often the restaurants and hotels at the back of the beach). It also can provide some shade in case they don’t make it to the sea before the sun comes up in the morning. It is however very important for the hatchlings to make the walk themselves, since they use this walk to stretch their flippers, build some strength/stamina, and develop motor skills. Without this walk, they could unfortunately drown.

Shading of nests

Whenever a nest is close to hatching, we place these shades around it to prevent the little hatchling from getting disoriented (because of light pollution for example) and help guide them to sea

Since hatching season is now approaching, kiosk shifts were more important than ever. Though most people have the best intentions when it comes to the turtles, they might not often have all the knowledge. Sometimes people really want to help the hatchlings that are struggling, and put them directly in the sea. Like I explained above, this could actually harm the turtle. It really made me happy though, to see how excited people were to learn! If you want to read more about what you should and shouldn’t do when you see a hatchling, you can read more about it here.

All the proceeds from the kiosk (and the webshop too) go straight back into the project.

Kiosk shift

In the kiosk we informed people about the do’s & don’t’s regarding the turtles and we sold things like notebooks, pendants, and more. You can also adopt a turtle!