Breaking tradition, the team decided that we are willing to brave the awful summer conditions and conduct a hunt in July. So we did. Ben had just recently joined our team, and we didn't want to keep him waiting until the winter anyway. So we figured we'd do a review of Batsto again.

As soon as we got our gear together, we soaked ourselves in bug spray. It was a pretty warm evening, but it wasn't too bad. We started off on the trails to investigate.

The area was really, really overgrown this time, but I'm not surprised. We haven't gone back to Batsto in the middle of the summer yet, so we're not really familiar with what it would look like this time of year. I'm guessing it would look like it did. The trail was much thinner now, closed in by the overhanging branches of the trees in full bloom.

It was pretty alive out there. Bugs were everywhere. You could hear them, see them, and feel them. It was pretty gross. All of the noises we heard were typical of a normal summer evening, nothing special for the most part.

We did encounter a really angry bug at one point. Mary had leaned over to investigate it, and the damn thing flew out and wouldn't leave us alone. We thought it was a bee at first, but it wasn't... We're still not sure what it was, other than really angry. Yeah, that was fun. Luckily, no one got bitten or stung, so we were alright.

After about an hour of travelling on the trails, we decided to turn back. The bugs were once again taking over, despite our second coating of bug spray, and we weren't hearing anything out there again. So we turned back.

On our way back, we finally heard a strange noise. We think it was a person. At several different points throughout the night, we could hear people's voices in the distance. They weren't close, but close enough for us to hear. I don't even know if they knew we were out there. So we heard something that we're all pretty convinced was one of them.

By the end of the night, we were pretty bummed. We decided that our next hunt will be to return to the place of the February sighting (see Hunt #27 for more details). Hopefully we'll have a better time there.

Well, that's our story for Hunt #29. Questions? Comments? E-mail us at [email protected]. Want to join us? Click here for the online application!