with the kind of nights we have been having lately, none of us were too eager to get out on the beach. it poured rain this evening, record amounts - and it didn't stop until about 930 pm. we hung around at my house until we decided we better make a pass or two, since it had cleared up and was looking like a really nice evening, warmer than the past few. we started at our usual places, Chris and Niki on the gator on the south end and Jeremy and I in the car on the north half of the beach. first two stops for us, nothing. then I spotted what looked like a leatherback far away down the beach, between the Marinelife Center and the Juno Pier. we drove down to the next crossover and looked again, it was just slightly south of us, and it looked big. from the steps closest to the turtle, she looked huge and Jeremy said "It's Bootes." it looked like it was wearing the backpack. from her satellite tracks, Bootes had been looking like she might head down this way again. we ran out onto the beach and looked through the night vision scope. Definitely the turtle had a backpack! we could see the harness and the little light blinking on top. quickly Jeremy and I made a quick pass of the rest of our section of beach, scoping at each crossover until we were sure that the beach was clear of other turtles. then we raced back to the turtle, having left her while she was digging her egg chamber. on the way, I called Chris and Niki to tell them about our find. squeals from the other end of the phone, Niki was pretty excited and they rushed to join us. Chris had his sisters Samantha and Melanie and friends along and they all headed our way.

Jeremy and I approached the turtle carefully once we were sure she was dropping eggs. we looked at her satellite tag and the number written on the front of it and my heart skipped. "Jeremy," I said, "It's Sandy." it really was her. we had not seen her since we put the satellite tag on. we never expected to see her again (at least for 2 years at a minimum). we were so excited, we just kept grinning. I called Chris and Niki back and said "It's Sandy!" they were only a short distance away. when they arrived, we carefully checked her entire harness and made a few adjustments so she would be more comfortable with the harness, but mostly it looked good. there were already tiny barnacles growing attached to the nylon straps. she looked good and we were all so glad to see her again. we watched her finish nesting and crawl down to the water where she disappeared into the waves. perhaps she will be back again in 9 or 10 days.

I really thought she was finished for the season, but it is possible that she did nest again 9 or 10 days ago, just not on our surveyed beach. however, that seems unlikely since she has been so faithful to our beach. as we were standing there, Chris realized that she has emerged at least 3 times within 500 yards of the Juno pier, a feat that seems incredible since now we know she travels to Cape Canaveral between nests. but as we only get positions every two days (the transmitter is on one day, then off the next to save batteries), it is possible that she nested on a night when her transmitter was on an off cycle and it only looked like she had gotten close to the beach but did not come ashore. that seems to be the best explanation now. we will talk to other morning beach crews along the coast to see if they had any nests around the time she should have been nesting.

after watching Sandy leave, we went our separate ways again to make a few more passes of the beach. nothing else out there tonight, but Sandy really was enough for all of us, what a great surprise...