Fort Pickens, Post-Gustav

We were very lucky to avoid most of Hurricane Gustav this past week, but he did leave a few signs of his passage in his wake...



For those of you familiar with our bird nesting areas, you know these signs stand about 5 feet high. With all the sand Gustav pushed around, this is now less than 2 feet off the ground. That's quite a few sand grains re-arranged!



There were breaches in three areas that I could identify, but the water has receded enough that I had no trouble accessing the western point of the island on ATV.



The two remaining turtle nests on Fort Pickens are doing well...



The dunes around them were a little worse for wear. It looks as if there was a breach just west of nest 7111 (the nest in photo above).



The pre-Ivan road was very evident for about a mile-and-a-half.



Drainage ditches were appearing randomly at the west end as well -- the island has to shed the water somewhere!



The marsh looks really good though! The buildings fared well also. Can't wait to have them back in business for visitors sometime soon!

Stormy Morning

There were no new nests on Pensacola Beach this morning, which is good!



The wind swept sea, and stinging sand, would have made moving a nest less than fun. Though work with sea turtles is always a joy, sandpapering my legs is never one of my favorite things!



I was surprised there were not any surfers, but maybe the seas were just too sloppy.



We did have lots of hatchlings last night though -- 110 at Santa Rosa and 31 at Perdido. Hope those waves help keep the predators at bay!