Scott Benson, from Jamursba-Medi, Indonesia. It rained most of the day again today, but stopped after the sunset. Nevertheless, we don’t anticipate a dry night. The UNIPA students remain in high spirits despite yesterday’s disappointment and the chronically soggy conditions.

The leatherbacks don’t appear until midnight. Suddenly, it’s a turtle invasion as leatherbacks crawl ashore in waves. I’ve been told that the timing of emergence from the water is a response to environmental cues, perhaps the change in the tidal cycle. The lack of animals prior to midnight, followed by this sudden surge of turtles makes me suspicious of communication between the reptiles.

We move quickly between transmitter deployments to tag as many as we can before the dawn appears. Rain falls intermittently, prompting the winged insects to swarm at our headlamps. Following each deployment, notes are scribbled in 10-second intervals to avoid attracting clouds of the bugs. Despite the repellent that I’ve applied liberally and repeatedly, bugs attempt to enter my ears, nose, and mouth. The biting sand files prompt wild slapping by everyone on the beach. What is the ecological role of sand fly? Would the ecosystem suffer if the sand fly was eliminated?

Before the night is through, we’ve managed to tag four leatherbacks with satellite transmitters, a new one-night record for Jamursba-Medi. We return to camp after dawn, covered in sand, wet, happy, and very tired. Written on July 25, 2007, in Jamursba-Medi, Indonesia.