Thursday, 7/11 Finally Thursday gets a little action with FC#20

 July 11, 2024 

Arriving on the beach, it was hot and humid with very little breeze, and clouds along the horizon. The heat index was in the 90's bringing with it a lot of bugs. The rain and waves we've had along the shore brought in a lot of trash. To brighten our morning we had FC#20. 

This mama was 32" wide and had a familiar dragmark on her plastron. She came in at low tide and crawled straight up to the top of the dune turning around just shy of the steep drop on the other side. She slid back down the front and crawled straight out again crossing over her incoming crawl. It is guessed that we may have missed her by as little as 40 minutes with as far as her crawl came in at low tide. 

 

Sandy brought along one special guest today and we are crediting her with giving us the false crawl to see. It was also reported that we have a lot of ants crawling up the DNR pole at N1. 

Here are a few pictures of the drive out, shore birds, and a nice view from the short end with the low tide of House Creek meeting the ocean. 

The clouds were lining up along the horizon and starting to darken as we finished measuring the crawl and we returned to the shed shortly before the skies opened up. 

Except for the bugs and the trash, it was another beautiful morning on Waties Island and we never tire of the view and the privilege of monitoring for the sea turtles. 

Kim P

All sea turtle monitoring by Waties Island Sea Turtle Patrol is permitted and authorized by the SCDNR Marine Turtle Conservation Program under Marine Turtle Permit MT500