Turtles

During the last few months we may have mentioned that there are turtles breeding on the beach of Malena. Not just on, but four species. In June and July, a few hawksbill turtles come ashore to breed. August and September are the main season, almost every night a few Olive Ridley turtles crawl onto the beach to lay their eggs. In October and November a few loggerheads and leatherbacks visit Malena beach to deposit their eggs.

Until now, we went to the beach at night just once, in June, and we did not see a turtle. Since we do intend to take visitors there, we thought it was about time we tried again.

We went to the beach around 8 in the evening about two ours before high water. Our first round of the beach was in vain, nothing crawling in or out of the water. But on our second round, we met the Malena turtle patrol, this time Ana and Darien, and our first (Olive Ridley) turtle. Finding a meter long turtle on a dark beach is slightly more complicated than you might think. Turtles prefer dark nights and since bright lights might scare them away, one is supposed to use weak red lights to get around and find the turtles or their nests.

When we arrived, the turtle was already busy digging the nest. When that was finished, the turtle started laying which, judging from the grunts and sighs she produced, is quite an arduous task (I always thought turtles were mute). After depositing 102 eggs, she closed the nest and camouflaged her activities by shuffling around and pressing down the sand with her body and flippers. This proved to be much more effective than you think. Although we looked on while she laid her eggs, it took us 15 minutes to find the nest back once she left.

We took some pictures of the turtle while she was laying her eggs and of Ana digging them up and burying them again (http://www.flickr.com/photos/tanagertourism/sets). The turtle patrol waits patiently until the turtle has laid her eggs and returns to the sea. Then they dig up the eggs and bury them again inside a cage built on the beach. In this cage the eggs are protected against the two main predators: stray dogs and poachers. When the eggs hatch, the turtles are released just outside the cage and guarded against crabs and other predators until they reach the sea.

We tried to take pictures without flash, but that resulted in images of darkness against a black background. So we used a weak flash and made sure the flash did not blind the turtle. Loes pursued the turtle on her way to the sea to take some pictures. Focusing the camera on a turtle hurrying to sea over a dark beach was, again, not very easy.

Most turtle specialists think you should definitely not use a flash before the turtle starts laying her eggs. And even after she has finished, using the flash is discouraged. Turtles lay more than once per year and specialists are afraid that a scared turtle might not come back to lay again that year. But then again, most turtle specialists will admit that they do not know very much about turtles and admit that most of these suggestions come from the ´better safe than sorry´ or the ´belts and braces´ approach.

That is, of course, very sensible. But on the other hand, if you want to encourage local people to protect turtles, they have to get something out of it. Patrolling the beach every night for half a year is quite an effort. The best way to make money is to invite tourists and get them to pay for the visit. And that is easiest if the tourists are allowed to make at least some photographs. We think that taking a few pictures should be allowed.

Anyway, while Ana was burying the eggs in the cage, the other, Darien already found another turtle coming onto the beach. The second one produced 108 eggs. We took some more pictures because this one had rather distinctive marks on her back. We might be able to recognize her if she comes again. What caused the marks is uncertain, for all we know it might have been an ambitious shark.

Proposal Writing

We have been pretty busy during the last weeks. Not only with planting trees, but also with (re)writing our businessplan. In June we sent a summary to the Business in Development Network (http://www.bidnet.org/). This organisation tries to match investors (the people with money) to entrepreneurs (the people with brains and guts). They also organise a competition where the best business plans are awarded prizes up to 20,000 Euro.

This year more than 4000 people submitted a summary. Everyone who got through the first round would get comments from a professional business coach and the writers of the very best plans would get help from a coach to write the full plan. So at the beginning of August we, and 2000 others, were informed that we got through to the second round. This did not really surprise us, we have a good plan and Kees can write a mean business plan, if he says so himself. What did surprise us (slightly ;-)) is that we got no comments on our summary and that we would get a coach to help us write the final plan. So ours was one of the best out of 4000 submissions.

Having one of the best plans to start with and a coach to make it even better, means we have amore than average chance to win one of the prizes. Therefore we decided to put a lot of effort in the complete business proposal to get the most out of our coach and to maximise our chances of winning a prize. Rewriting the original plan was not the problem. According to our coach, the text is excellent. But getting al the numbers right was slightly more difficult for us, since we had very little experience with business economics. The organisation had provided a worksheet to be completed and that was somewhat complicated. We had no clue what ´reteined earnings´ or ´NPV´ were (now we do) and there were a few other hurdles. Communication with the coach was always via e-mail, which did not make matters easier. But we managed to get all the numbers matching where they should be matching, largely thanks to our coach. Last weekend we uploaded the plan, well in advance of the deadline (3 Sept midnight Central European Time). And now we wait. The winners will be anounced in October.

And since we were busy writing anyway, we also decided to submit a proposal to the ´Green Picnic Challenge´ of teh Dutch postcodeloterij (zie http://www.postcodeloterij.nl/GoedeDoelen/PICNICGreenChallenge.htm.)
There will be only be one winner, but the prize is half a million Euro! We had a bit of a brainstorm (well, it was more like a light summer´s breeze to be honest) and submitted a proposal for activities that would be additional to the business plan we submitted to BiD. We do not hold our breath on this one, but you never know, Kees can, after all, write a good proposal...

Ps. No photo´s, because we thought pictures of us behind a computer are not very exiting...