While sitting in a tree house on the west coast of Costa Rica, dreaming about my next move, I came across the Cano Palma Biological Station in my Lonely Planet Guide. I e-mailed the coordinator to see if the station was accepting volunteers, and she heartedly accepted my request. Two days later I was on the bus, making my way to the dense jungle of the east coast, with a stopover to pick up appropriate sea turtle volunteer footwear: crocs.
Getting to the station was half the adventure, but after a cab, two busses, a jungle-river ferry, a muddy hike, and a paddle, I arrived. The station was rugged, with dozens of giant golden orb spiders lining the stoops sitting proudly in their webs, howler monkeys screaming in the trees and toucans flying overhead. The air was dense and the forever dampness cast a moldy hue on the infrastructure. Housed were wonderful traveling scientists and humanitarians, spending their August saving turtles.
My first night shift came, which was one of the grossest and most wonderful experiences of my life. As soon as we got onto the beach, the clouds rolled in and lightening lit up the sky blinding us as we began our patrol. It was strikingly dark without the help of the moon and stars. The four of us stumbled along the beach looking for tracks and turtles.
After doing the entire transect of the beach, we turned around and spotted some tracks. We waited in the rain on a log for the turtle to begin nesting, while catching glimpses of the magical beast through lightning flashes. And all of the sudden, the work began. The team leader quietly brought me to meet my first green sea turtle; a local encounter I’ll never forget. She was beautiful, strange, and didn't even notice that we were there.
It was my job to count her eggs, which basically means that I lay on my stomach with one gloved hand under the turtles butt while she lays eggs, and the other hand up the air with a measuring tape attached to act as the apex of a triangle. The scientists scurried around me gathering data while I was being doused with turtle birthing fluids, catching eggs two at a time. Eventually I could feel the high tide nipping at toes as the sand flees jumped all around my face. As soon as she started to move her back flippers to cover her hole, I quickly measured the egg chamber depth, and then started to measure the turtle herself. She was 1.3 m in length. We got out of the way as soon as she started making sand angels to cover up her egg chamber. The lightning allowed us quick glimpses of the turtle as she made her way back out to sea to graze amongst the sea grass. We went back to the nest, disguised it as best as we can to keep away poachers, and high-fived.
One of the researchers, who was a part of the team, said "There are lots of things in life that are both disgusting and amazing at the same time. Like eating too much chocolate, catching turtle eggs, and sex. Just like sex, there is a lot of buildup, and then it happens. You don't really remember the details, but it was kind of gross but mostly amazing. After, you feel really hungry and somehow deeply satisfied."