Scott Benson, from Jamursba-Medi, Indonesia. Upon returning to camp following the previous evenings’ deployments, we catch a few hours of sleep during the cool early morning hours before the heat of the sun forces consciousness. Huge storm clouds are on the horizon, and by noon the sky is dark. Biblical quantities of rain begin to drench our camp by the afternoon. My tent is in poor condition. Tiny streams and lakes form inside, forcing me to abandon my inadequate shelter. Sheets of rain continue throughout the day and into the night, so we decide to cancel our work at Warmamedi once again. My clothes are wet, bedding is a damp spounge, and hundreds of bug bites cover my limbs. I’m beginning to get impatient with the incessant rain and realize that the only way out of here is to deploy those last two transmitters.

Previous deployments from Jamursba-Medi have revealed that these turtles, unlike leatherbacks from Costa Rica, swim to many different areas throughout the Pacific and Indo-Pacific after they nest. The variability has been extreme. Approximately 44 percent of tagged leatherbacks have moved east and northeast, though equatorial waters, eventually approaching the North American coast, including California. Another 36 percent have moved through the Sulu and Sulawesi Seas, weaving between islands of the Philippines and Malaysia, often settling along coastal margins of the South China Sea. Results of the remaining deployments have indicted use of truly pelagic environments in the North Pacific Transition, a high-latitude area in the middle of the North Pacific where satellite images detect chlorophyll (which indicates the likelihood of plankton and a food web), and the equatorial Pacific, thousands of miles from the nearest land. The use of many foraging destinations is probably an advantage for the Jamursba-Medi nesting population, because environmental variability and at-sea threats likely don’t affect all areas equally during any particular year. If jellyfish aren’t abundant this year near the Philippines, perhaps they’ll be more abundant off the Oregon coast. Using many foraging areas is like hedging a bet. Something is bound to pay off for some proportion of the population.

At dawn, only these tracks tell the tale of a leatherback's night-time visit.

We’re hoping that most of the leatherbacks will move northeast this time and help us identify high-use areas 50-150 miles off the California coast. We’ve planned some aerial and shipboard surveys for August 2008, when we expect these turtles to arrive, to characterize this offshore ecosystem and its use by leatherbacks. Unfortunately, we don’t know, prior to putting satellite tags on the turtles, which of the nesting turtles will go northeast toward North America, northwest into the South China Sea, or someplace else. Our fingers are crossed that three or four will make it to the California Current. Based on previous results, the odds are in our favor, but I’m not betting my house on it. Written July 27, 2007, in very damp Jamursba-Medi, Indonesia.