Thanks to a great turnout of volunteers on February 6, reference markers have been placed every 50 meters along Playa Guiones from the northern end down to Bakers Beach. You are invited to meet on Saturday, March 12, at 7:30 am, at the Baker’s Beach entrance to Playa Guiones (near Nosara Beach Hostel) to help finish the job.

A volunteer training workshop is scheduled for later that day at Giardino Tropicale, in Spanish at 3 pm and in English at 4 pm. The workshop will cover TORTUGuiones, basic sea turtle biology and conservation, and how you can help us.

TORTUGuiones has several new products for sale: hand-stamped metal bracelets ($15), stainless steel straws ($2), hemp necklaces, bracelets, and keychains ($10), and stickers ($1). Sea turtle photography prints are available for $10 at Nativa Gallery (next to Robin’s Ice Cream).

In February, TORTUGuiones launched its education program with talks and activities at Nosara Day Camp, Del Mar Academy, and Playa Pelada with a small group of local children. The education program is continuing, and Vanessa is offering additional educational workshops this month. Contact her to schedule a talk and/or activity at your school, business, or organization.

Every week, basic water quality reports for Playa Guiones, Playa Pelada, and Boca Nosara are posted on TORTUGuiones’ Facebook page. Reports of nesting sea turtles and hatchlings have been coming in regularly, with 20 reports of sea turtle sightings for the month of February: 8 nests, 6 actively nesting sea turtles, and 6 hatchling sightings between Pelada and Guiones.

Visit www.tortuguiones.weebly.com to report a sea turtle sighting, make a donation, or find out more about the organization and how you can help. (see below flyer on how to report activity)

Those trees with numbers on them? They’re there for the turtles.

The kids have got the message!

Report Sea Turtle Activity

TORTUGuiones is a community- and volunteer-based sea turtle conservation project founded to monitor nesting activity, conduct outreach, and provide educational materials to ensure the conservation of sea turtles and protection of their habitat within this part of the Ostional National Wildlife Refuge.

BarriGuiones’ major accomplishment in February was to restore and replace the majority of its tree nursery structure. With the help of volunteers and sponsorships, the BarriGuiones team reorganized the whole nursery, built up a bodega room for its tools, replaced wood beams and saran, and sealed the whole structure. They also created more germination boxes, germinated lots of seeds, and transplanted hundreds of seedlings. Today the nursery has around 2,500 trees!

Sponsored labor hand guys replacing wood beams on the nursery roof

Volunteers painting the new wood beams with teak sealer

Barriguiones intern Kayla measuring saran to replace the old ones on the nursery

Barriguiones is a local offshoot of Costas Verdes, whose mission to restore Costa Rica’s coastal ecosystems by actively involving schools, communities, and local authorities in generating local environmental, social, and economic benefits.