Torture

That's what the word for turtle sounds like in French. But that is what we saw this past weekend at Pointe Denis (just across the estuaire from Libreville). We hired and guide and we walked quite a ways to see this mama lay her eggs in the sand.

It was definitely worth it though!! She was huge 3-4 ft long and probably 2.5 ft wide! Apparently Gabon has the largest concentration of this kind of turtle in the world. We couldn't take pictures until the very end because they follow light and she did! They had to guide her back to the ocean a couple times.

Gabon’s Species: Leatherbacks

In the Pacific Ocean, leatherbacks have declined by 95% in the last twenty years, so have been classified as critically endangered worldwide. We are lucky that Gabon has the biggest nesting population in the world. Leatherbacks are the largest of the sea turtle species and also the most unique-looking. They have a soft leathery carapace with seven longitudinal ridges and numerous white spots. A large adult can have a carapace of 180 cm in length, a flipper-span of 270 cm and a weight of 500 kg. The biggest recorded leatherback measured 2.91 m and weighed 916 kg!

They feed on jellyfish and other oceanic invertebrates, which they trap in their oesophagus with special spiny structures. Floating plastic bags in the sea can be mistaken for jellyfish and kill leatherbacks who eat them. Leatherbacks can dive for as long as one hour to depths as much as 1000 m! In addition, they are known to feed even in cold Arctic waters, since they are unique among reptiles in their ability to thermoregulate. Several leatherbacks which nested in Gabon and were marked with metal flipper tags were later recaptured in feeding grounds as far away as South America and South Africa.

(After our mama finished her nesting they tagged her with one of these metal tags, and she quickly decided she wanted to go back to the sea!)

Got this info from here: http://www.seaturtle.org/groups/gabon/turtles.html

Internet down

So our telephone line at home is not working... therefore our internet is down and has been for the last week. I am at the Straw's (Pilot) house using their internet. Trying to call the phone company to see if I can get them to repair it, but the line is busy - does that sound familiar??

Straight and narrow... not quite

A road...















A river...


Notice any similarities??
It really makes me ponder...
why are the roads so curvy and not straight?
Do they follow the rivers?
No compass?
Terrain issues?
Not in a hurry?

Any other ideas?

15 minutes of fame

Check me out on Steve's website! I got to be part of the first flight to Bongolo!

http://gabonpilot.blogspot.com/

I was excited, but I did feel a little bad... here I am the new girl, and there are people like Dave & Becky Thompson, Tim & Meredith, etc. who have been waiting for this plane for years!!

But despite this feeling I was able to enjoy myself on the short flight! I recover quickly :)

Apparently you have to push the plane out of the hanger a little before you start the propeller... this is Alace (Steve on the other side) pushing the plane - she is really strong!!

One good thing about flying private planes is the security isn't quite as tight :)

When we arrived at Bongolo a crowd was watching the skies, and ready to welcome us!!

Maybe, might, may...

It was the same day that we were learning "maybe, might, and may" in English class... Mama Jeanine asked me if I would a bug and I replied with "I might eat a worm.". She apparently digs them up at her plantation. Planting here is not in the US - surprise, surprise!! Ok sometimes I see plots of land that resemble rectangles and have rows to them, but most of the "plantations" are plots of land with things randomly planted on them.

In her plantation Mama Jeanine has planted maize (corn), manioc (a root but they also eat the leaves), peanuts, and bananas. The corn is not the sweet corn that we have in the US, someone said it's more like the corn we give the pigs.