Scott Benson, from Jamursba-Medi, Indonesia. After a marathon journey across the Pacific, I finally arrive in Sorong, Papua Barat, for the 6-hour boat ride to Jamursba-Medi. The rugged north coast of the Bird’s Head Peninsula is an environment of empty beaches among a backdrop of steep mountains and dense forest. As we proceed east, small villages become rare and inconspicuous, blending into the surrounding landscape. I’ve made about a half dozen previous visits to the Bird’s Head Peninsula and I’m still impressed by the raw beauty of this remote location. If you’re interested, Carl Safina conveys a brilliant description of this wild and lonely coastline in a chapter of “The Voyage of the Turtle”. We stop briefly at Saubeba, the closest village to Jamursba-Medi, and briefly observe a game of ‘tag’ along the water’s edge between the local children and a young cassowary. The cassowary is a tall flightless bird, similar to an ostrich, and the sight of a young cassowary in pursuit of 15 small children is priceless.

I’m traveling with Ricardo Tapilatu of the State University of Papua (UNIPA), his students, and Betel Samber, a ranger with the Papua Barat Department of Forestry and Nature Conservation (BKSDA). Upon arriving at Jamursba-Medi, we unload and prepare our equipment for the evening’s tagging activities. I speak only of few words of Bahasa Indonesia (language of Indonesia) and the rest of the team speaks little English, therefore, we spend the last hour of daylight orientating everyone to the equipment and procedures we’ll employ to apply the transmitters to the leatherbacks. We’re fortunate to be joined by a few local friends that have helped us deploy transmitters here during previous visits, and together we train the new members of the tagging team.

Jamursba-Medi is a complex of three distinct beaches that together span about 11 miles (18 kilometers). Our camp is located at Batu Rumah beach (the center of the complex), however, we’ll be deploying transmitters at Warmamedi beach, a 45-minute walk to the east, where nesting activity is greater. The walk to Warmamedi beach will be a nightly adventure through tangles of brambles and over slippery ankle-banging intertidal rocks as we make our way through the forest and along the coast. I’m always last to arrive at Warmamedi. The early evening is illuminated by a half moon, but the leatherbacks don’t arrive until the night is completely dark. We attach transmitters to three turtles among the 16 that nest tonight, an excellent beginning. Written on July 21,2007, Jamursba-Medi, Indonesia.