As I mentioned in a previous post, olive ridleys are not the first sea turtle to be satellite tracked in Gabon.  Collaborators at seaturtle.org, the Marine Turtle Research Group and Wildlife Conservation Society have been tracking leatherback sea turtles for the last several years - and have found that they cross the entire Atlantic Ocean!

Well, it looks like today I am off to Mayumba at long last.  Thankfully, a bush taxi through the entire country won't be necessary, but it will still be a long trip.  

It's Wednesday and I'm still in Libreville, so it seems like a good chance to tell you a little about life here - for me and the Gabonese.

Gabon is an amazingly beautiful country but travel and logistics can be challenging to say the very least.  I'm still in Libreville but thankfully, however, my equipment has arrived and I can start making plans to get to my field site.   This year we had planned for Dan Costa to come and join me in the field but logistics fell apart as they often do: flights are currently not running to Mayumba (the town closest to my field site), the flight to the next nearest town has also been cancelled, the ATV used to reach the field site has broken, as has the WCS truck in Mayumba.

I am a graduate student working with Dan Costa using tagging to better protect olive ridley sea turtles in Gabon and Congo on Africa’s west coast. Let me tell you a little about olive ridleys and this part of the world.