Bare sand island trip

Post Reply
mickkk
Jedi Seadog
Jedi Seadog
Posts: 988
Joined: Mon Oct 08, 2012 9:26 pm

Bare sand island trip

Post by mickkk »

This is a little video of last weekends trip to bare sand island. We have spent many of fruitless hours walking beaches looking for nesting or hatching turtles.
We got spoilt this time. We would have seen around 10 nest over the 2 nights and was still in bed before 10 each night.
There was a researcher (mick, champion fella) out on the island who become our own personal tour guild, answering the endless questions from the kids... (and Keri and i).
He even let the kids help him with his research, writing down sizes, checking hatched nest and documenting how many eggs hatch, how many didn’t. Collecting and of the slow hatching to release that night so the birds didn’t pick them off.
Fishing was oddly quite, but got a good mixed bag.
Seen a pod of dolphins (quite possibly were false killer wales) swim right up to the boat.
And the small island full of birds was cool too.
Was a very special weekend.




https://youtu.be/QaKaNfR8Ilw


User avatar
Matt Flynn
Site Administrator
Site Administrator
Posts: 16186
Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 9:30 am
Location: Somewhat Southerly
Contact:

Re: Bare sand island trip

Post by Matt Flynn »

Quiet fishing mickkkk, haha. Half your luck.

Great video - special weekend in a special place.
jeffish
Jedi Seadog
Jedi Seadog
Posts: 3716
Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2011 8:25 am
Location: Darwin

Re: Bare sand island trip

Post by jeffish »

Very special indeed , what a great experience for the kids ,,, 8) :applause:

I just let our grandkids see this ,,, yep, now I have to plan a trip .

I have camped there about 20 years ago , do you need any sort of permit these days ?

Cheers
mickkk
Jedi Seadog
Jedi Seadog
Posts: 988
Joined: Mon Oct 08, 2012 9:26 pm

Re: Bare sand island trip

Post by mickkk »

https://www.nlc.org.au/uploads/pdfs/180 ... Map-A3.pdf

All good to camp there.
No fires, which I normally hate, but you are pretty busy walking the beaches at night and then in bed so it’s not soo bad.
Take head lights with red light. When the turtles are coming up the beach and digging their body hole they can be spooked easily with white light. Once they are digging their chamber and laying they go in a trance and can then use white light. When they head back down to the beach go to red light as the turtle will go towards the white light. Same with the hatchlings, they go towards the lights, you can guide them down to the water with them.
Apparently the turtles can bite, so keep away from the bitie end. Once they are laying or heading back to water you can touch them from behind.
Probably only 2 or 3 sets of spring tides till they finish laying. They will continue to hatch for another 50 days after that.
You need a permit to handle the hatchlings, there was a researcher on the island who let the kids help him release ones he had collected from the morning before. We also seen them hatching and walking down the beach naturally.

https://nt.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_fil ... elines.pdf
This is a good bit of info too.
User avatar
theodosius
Jedi Seadog
Jedi Seadog
Posts: 3258
Joined: Mon May 18, 2009 10:46 pm

Re: Bare sand island trip

Post by theodosius »

Wow, well worth it then! Thanks for the info!
jeffish
Jedi Seadog
Jedi Seadog
Posts: 3716
Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2011 8:25 am
Location: Darwin

Re: Bare sand island trip

Post by jeffish »

Thanks for the extra info mickkk :mrgreen:
Post Reply
  • Similar Topics
    Replies
    Views
    Last post

Return to “Photography”