Turtle Summer - Week 2
July 2, 2023 - July 8, 2023
It has been a while since I wrote another blog post. As of writing this blog I’ve returned home safely. I stopped writing because some things that happened over this summer. However, now that I’m back home and everything ended up working out, I feel like this experience is too wonderful not to share. So, albeit a bit late, I’ll continue my blog of my stay in Greece.
Beautiful Mátala beach
After the first week in Mátala, I already felt right at home. After one week, I had done every one of the shifts and found my place in the group. To start of this week, I got to join on the emergency relocation of a nest. Usually, we leave the nests we find on morning survey where we find them. Sometimes, though, the nests are for example in the high tide zone and this affects the success rate of the nest drastically. In these cases, a nest needs to be relocated. First, we dug a new egg chamber. Second, we very carefully moved the eggs from the nest to egg cartons. And finally, we reburied the eggs in the newly dug egg chamber. It was such a good experience with a beautiful sunset to go along with it.
Relocated eggs in the new nest
Every ten days, we get a full day off which meant that on my second day I had my first day off! Two other girls (who were also on day-off) and I rented a car and went to the Kourtaliotiko gorge. A beautiful gorge with a hidden waterfall. To really see this waterfall, we had to swim through the icey cold water, but it was so worth it.
Kourtaliotiko Gorge
The gorge looked like something out of Avatar, so magical
After our refreshing swim in the gorge, we headed over to Preveli beach and walked around the palm tree forest. This too was beautiful (although a bit too touristy) and I was so happy to see something more of what Crete has to offer. For lunch, I had pasticcio (a dish from Corfu, Greece, which reminded me of the trip my boyfriend and I had planned last year but never got to go on haha)
Palm tree forest, Preveli Beach
Because of the tourism and the small bay that Mátala beach is in, this beach itself isn’t a nesting beach. However, that doesn’t mean that a turtle won’t nest there. Turtles in fact always go back to nest on the beach they were born. When we got back from our day-off there was actually a turtle nesting! We got to see her in action, and wow, I will never forget that moment. We tried to take this moment too to spread some public awareness about the turtles and how to act around them (although I will probably make a seperate blog post about that). Fortunately, pretty much everyone really did their best to follow our advice on how not to disturb the turtle. What an amazing day it was!
Nesting turtle!
If you ever see one: don’t use flash! Low exposure photos are the way to go
