Ah. It was a better day to go turtle tagging. We took a panga over to Coronado Island yesterday, spent the night and came back today in calm seas. Four tortugas were tagged and named. Tortuga Michelle Colleen weighed 100 lbs. Jude, mine, named for a tortuga friend weighed 85 lbs. Sally McDawg weighed 80 lbs and Grant, the only male, weighed 125 lbs.

After spending time untangling the net from the day before when there was a 168 lb tortuga captured, the naturalists went out at 7pm, 9pm, 11pm, 1am, 3am and 5 to bring netted tortugs to shore. I went out with the 7pm group and we did not find any tortugas then.

Each tortuga was measured, weighed and tagged. Any wounds or shell damage was recorded. Barnacles were removed from the shells as barnacles can eat thru the shells and eventually kill the tortuga.

This particular monitoring project has been happening for 5 months. Besides providing information about the tortuga population here they want to educate the public. And Eco-tourism is also a part of this. They will be trying to capture and tag during the day and if that works may take day trips for people who do not want overnight camping on the beach.

I'll post some photos when I have them.