Basking Project

Recently I'm spending most of my time at Ho'okipa Beach, watching the turtles come and go and collecting data. Yesterday there was a turtle almost completely buried in sand. At first I thought he was a rock but then I saw his tail. There is a picture of him below. It is very easy to mistake the rocks for turtles, and the turtles for rocks. Sometimes turtles come up on the  middle of the beach instead of the corner where they usually are, which makes it easy for people not to notice them if they're not paying close attention. A lot of tourists almost walk over the turtles, and when we ask them to move away, it's really entertaining to see their reactions as they realize that the rock is actually a turtle. Two days ago a girl screamed  in shock and almost dropped her phone. It was hilarious. 

 Most people are respectful and stay behind the line while they take pictures, but of course there's always a few that are really rude. There was one twenty-something Canadian girl who was really beautiful and obviously trying to capitalize on that. She gave us a sob story about how she's had a bad experience in Hawaii so far due to a mix-up with her rental car, etc etc,  and it wasn't like this in Australia or anywhere else. Then she asked if she could walk through the turtles with her GoPro and take a video, even though Anthony (the lead naturalist on duty that day) had already told her to stay behind the line once. She pushed her boobs out a little bit more and babbled on about something else, then asked again. He said no again. She waited until he was talking to someone else and did it anyway. Rude. Some people only  care about their social media footprint and not about respecting endangered species while they are napping.

Anthony is really great. He's lived on Hawaii his whole life and was able to tell me a lot about the lore of Ho'okipa Beach. As you enter the beach, there are some rocks with flowers on them. I asked him about these rocks, and he said that the rocks have power and you can honor them by thanking them for the ocean and for letting us use it. After sunset, when everyone had cleared out and it was just us, the waves, and the sleeping turtles,  he pulled two Hawaiian IPAs out of his bag! We drank the beers and I asked him if he'd ever spent the night on the beach, and he said absolutely not. There are bad spirits that come out on the beach. These aren't evil spirits, they're just bad and you don't want to be around them.  He also told me about a local school that was built on an ancient battle ground. He and some other people (one  of them was a tribal chief or a master of some kind)  went to the school and honored the spirits of the warriors. They thanked the spirits for  the brave things they had done, and asked them not to harm or bother the students. I appreciated how openly he spoke about his spiritual beliefs.

 Yesterday the head naturalist was Magdalena (Magda).  She is a competitive paddleboarder in her free time. On Monday she paddled seven hours from one island to another.  I love Magda's sassy sense of humor! She loves the turtles and together we joke about the rude tourists. Interestingly enough, I asked her if she had ever spent the night at the beach and she said the same thing that Anthony had said. She also mentioned that she has a protective tattoo so she doesn't have to be afraid of being there for a little bit while it's dark. Again, I appreciated how openly she spoke about this. It's very different from what I'm used to. 

On a side note, have I mentioned I haven't seen any liquor stores since I've been here? I guess they sell all of that in grocery stores, but I think it also says a lot about how happy people are on Maui vs. in Arkansas, or the rest of the mainland in general. I'm used to seeing a liquor store every several blocks.  It could also have to do with differing priorities. Either way, it's interesting to think about.

One more rude tourist story before I wrap up. on Tuesday there was a  woman with boobs that were too big for her body (obviously fake, she needs a better plastic surgeon) wearing a bikini that was too small. she came up and started by bragging about how she loves to volunteer, she's looking for projects for Eagle Scouts, blah blah blah. Then she said she's from California so I'm not sure why she's looking for Eagle Scout projects in Hawaii.  She said that our whole setup could be done so much better, and her Scouts could make better signs, better cones, etc. She asked Magda about her education and then said that she is a doctor and her husband over there (an impossibly buff 50 year old man) is a retired police officer with the LAPD, but now he's a professional photographer. Indeed, he had a large camera on a large tripod just over the line. I guess his large professional camera couldn't zoom in six more inches. 

After a while of debating about what to say, Magda went over to the lady and asked her why, if she was so knowledgeable about volunteer work, her husband was breaking the rules by being over the line.  The woman quickly stood up and said "Yes! I'll go do some volunteer work for you right now." She took her time gathering her things, and five minutes later, nothing had happened.  Magda went over and asked the guy to move his camera and the woman was not happy about that. "Mag-da-le-na, I told you I would do it." Magda said she was just doing her job. Then the rude woman criticized our lack of knowledge by telling us that we should be able to answer all her questions (such as, how old is that specific turtle? How far did that one over therr swim today?) And when she left she gave us high-fives saying, "you deserve it!" 

Magda said they get a lot of rude people like that. Apparently they came back the next morning and tried the same shenanigans.