Elvis

Today was a very busy day, we saw about 500 visitors. Thankfully we had 8 people working today so we managed to get everyone through the facility and take care of everything we needed with out any hair pulling or major break downs. We have a lot going on around here this week so just plain turtle stuff is taking up a lot of time. The next set of babies, which is something like nine nests, are all expected to hatch starting Wednesday or Thursday. And then we'll have another special release for Angel, one of our juvenile Greens, on Thursday evening. I love those releases because we get to go out on a sunset cruise and dolphin watch and I don't have to wake up crazy early to see all the action. In addition to all of that our last tank should be coming in soon, which means more plumbing and building, and the doctors should be coming in to do the final fitting for Allison's flipper and we have new displays to make and put up and of course a never ending supply of t-shirts to fold...

There were a few highlights to my day though. I love the medical part of this job, it pains me to see a turtle flinch when we give an injection, but at the same time I find it so cool to get that experience. We have two turtles right now who are on serious meds for puncture wounds so they get a special soak and ointment everyday as well as fluids and antibiotics. One of those turtles, Roy, also gets an oral medication and we're always surprised by his strength despite the hole on the bottom of his shell. He can't weigh more than 6 or 7 pounds, but it takes four of us to hold his flippers and his head so that someone else can insert the tube and a fourth person can give him the medicine. Our other sick little guy, Todd, is the same size, but much skinnier and so today we began to force feed him in an attempt to put some weight on him. Unlike Roy he hardly fought us at all.

So far this summer I've put off mentioning a turtle incident on the beach because law enforcement has stepped in and we have been told to offer no comments to the press, making talking about it at all off limits. Since the incident all of the local news stations and news papers have been calling in and trying to get comments and information and it's been a bit of a bizarre experience for the interns. Well today another tv channel came in to talk to Jeff, but I was unfortunately the first person to speak to him. He was terribly frustrated that I refused to give him any information, though it wasn't actually an option for me. But to top things off this guy was dressed so poorly that he hardly looked professional. His ill fitting button down was rolled up to his elbow, but not evenly or neatly, and his tie was crooked, loose and the back part was longer than the front. So maybe he didn't the turtles were that important, but I'm not sure how he thought he was going to sway us to give a story dressed like that.

Anyway, once the stress of that was over we did get a pretty good laugh about another interesting visitor. There was a young man who came into STI today dressed in an Elvis costume with a camera man in tow. It seems that he did was come in and talk to Jessica and Tom, two of the interns, and didn't even take a tour. The story as I heard it was that he came in, introduced himself as a daredevil and had the two of them offer him a dare, all off camera. When Tom suggested bungee jumping off of the bridge or from Louie's bungee tower "Elvis" shot down both ideas. As they were talking about SPI activities they mentioned snorkeling as a popular activity. So then Elvis said, "ok when I ask for a dare on camera say that" and they began shooting, Elvis introduced Tom and Jessica, talked to them for a minute about snorkeling, than took off. As he left we had the obligatory "Ladies and gentlemen, Elvis has left the building" and that was it. We have no idea who he is or what the interview was for. Bizarre.

I've been receiving emails, comments and mail, thank you so much to everyone, it means so much to me. Today's pictures are from Brian who was at one of our hatchling releases earlier this season, thank you Brian!

Take time to get gain some perspective.