And we wait.
SURF:
Not too exciting this past week. Just some background SW/NW swells and mild weather. Unfortunately the weekend is more of the same. Tomorrow looks to be knee high again with waist high sets and Sunday morning starts off small again.
FORECAST:
Now that we got the bad news out of the way, let's focus on the good. We had a small storm in the southern hemisphere last week that will send us more chest high SW on Wednesday.
WEATHER:
That 'storm' that rolled through earlier in the week gave us a 0.01" drenching. Which is equivalent to thick fog. Seriously. This weekend we had hoped to see another 'storm' roll through here, but it's going to miss us and head to northern Baja instead. We'll just get some high clouds. Monday/Tuesday is a transition day with night/morning low clouds/fog and cool seasonal temperatures. Then the warm up starts. Seriously. More summer-like beach weather with temps around 80 for Wednesday to Sunday. I'm over it. I'm moving to Seattle next month.
BEST BET:
Dominant NW on Wednesday with background SW and beach temps in the 80's.
NEWS OF THE WEEK:
If you had to list all the great things about Hawaii, you would get writer’s cramp. From the good surf, to the warm water, to the tropical breezes, to Matsumoto’s shave ice, it’s no wonder everyone wants to move there. But at the top of the list you have to put gentle sea turtle. Legend has it that accomplished waterman Clyde Aikau won the inaugural Quiksilver Eddie Aikau Big Wave Contest in macking 25’ surf in 1986 with the help of sea turtles. “Those turtles to me were a symbol of Eddie and Jose Angel. It happened twice that day. Everyone was in the regular lineup when these two turtles appeared and I followed them out beyond everyone else and deeper than everyone else. Then this huge wave came and I jumped on it. It happened twice in that heat”.
But it turns out sea turtles, even at a tender 6-18 months of age, aren’t very lazy. They don’t just passively drift in ocean currents as researchers once thought. NOAA and University of Central Florida researchers say it’s an important new clue in the sea turtle “lost years” mystery. Where exactly turtles travel in their first years of life, before returning to coastal areas as adults to forage and reproduce, has puzzled scientists for decades.
“All species of sea turtles are endangered or threatened under the Endangered Species Act; knowing their distribution is an essential part of protecting them. With a better understanding of swimming behavior in these yearlings we can make better predictions about where they go and what risks they might encounter,” said Dr. Nathan Putman, lead author of this new study and sea turtle biologist with NOAA’s Southeast Fisheries Science Center in Miami.
Upon hatching, young sea turtles swim offshore and disperse with the help of ocean currents. The turtles are rarely observed during the next two to ten years or so, but prior studies suggest that at least some reside among mats of seaweed, such as Sargassum, that provide shelter and habitat in the open sea. Not much is known about these juveniles’ movements during this time (researchers dub it the “lost years”), but it has been widely assumed that turtles simply drift with ocean currents.
Putman worked with Dr. Kate Mansfield, director of the University of Central Florida’s Marine Turtle Research Group, to challenge this long-existing hypothesis. Mansfield placed specially designed solar-powered tags on 24 green & 20 Kemp’s ridley wild-caught sea turtle toddlers in the Gulf of Mexico. The tags were tracked by satellite for a short period of time before shedding cleanly from the turtle shells (max. 2-3 months). Next to the turtles, Mansfield deployed small, carefully-weighted/passively-drifting surface buoys that were also tracked by satellite.
When the drifter tracks were compared to the sea turtles’ movements, the researchers found that the turtles’ paths differed significantly from the passive drifters. Using observed and modeled ocean current conditions, they found a difference of distance between the turtles and drifters to be as much as 125 miles in the first few days. In nearly every instance, the toddlers’ swimming behavior appears to help them reach or remain in favorable ocean habitats.
When placed in the water next to two drifting buoys (blue lines), this one turtle was shown to have swam far to the East. "The results of our study have huge implications for better understanding early sea turtle survival and behavior, which may ultimately lead to new and innovative ways to further protect these imperiled animals,” said Mansfield.
She added, “What is exciting is that this is the first study to release drifters with small, wild-caught yearling or neonate sea turtles in order to directly test the ‘passive drifter’ hypothesis in these young turtles. Our data show that one hypothesis doesn’t, and shouldn’t, fit all, and that even a small degree of swimming or active orientation can make a huge difference in the dispersal of these young animals.”
BEST OF THE BLOG:
If you haven't already, make sure to sign up for the 1st Annual North County Board Meeting golf tournament benefiting TERi. Like you really want to work next Friday?! Think of it this way- it's a chance to network and drum up new business, so it REALLY IS working. If you haven't read the story yet on the North County Surf blog, here it is in a nutshell: A golf tournament next Friday, April 17th to benefit TERi, a facility in Oceanside that helps children and adults with special needs. And it's just $60. And lunch is included from Board & Brew. And it's for a good cause, so there's no reason not to come out and support the event. Fore more info, click here.
PIC OF THE WEEK:
Say what you want about Nazare in Portugal. That it's a mushy wave. Or that Garret McNamara really didn't really ride a 100' wave there. Or that it's not a real wave named Maverick's, Waimea, or Cortes. Regardless, I wouldn't paddle out there, nor would you. It's just a beast. Period. Great, now I'm going to have nightmares about this picture tonight. Stoke.
Keep Surfing,
Michael W. Glenn
Master of Ceremonies
Growing A Sweet Burt Reynolds 'Stache
Want To Be Reincarnated As A Sea Turtle
