It was an early start to the day, as we grabbed a morning coffee and egg roti at a nearby restaurant before walking to the jetty around the corner. Our speedboat took an hour to get to Tutrtle Island, and it was a rough ride. The back of me was completely soaked by the end of the trip, and I was incredibly glad I wore my travel sickness wristbands so I didn’t end up like some in our group who were queasily hanging over the edge of the boat.
The further we drove out, the more clear and aquamarine the water became, until we pulled up at what was most definitely tropical island paradise. We checked into our rooms which looked quite new, all set within a one level unit-block accommodation setting. We immediately changed and walked down a sandy path to the beach, which had white sand and clear, warm water, and it was just perfect. We swam and sunbathed (not too close to the coconut trees, whose coconuts we had seen drop occasionally, and man you would not want to be beneath a falling coconut. Those things would hurt) and listened to the waves and bird sounds and generally relaxed all day.
The water was like warm bath, and we didn’t see any jellyfish, despite the sign the ‘lifeguard’ put up as we were in the water, before returning to his hammock. There was only about 25 people on the island on the day we were there, so apart from passing a few other guests every now and again, it felt like we had the whole island to ourselves.
We met a six o’clock to watch the sunset, which wasn’t very spectacular due to a few clouds that made an appearance, with drinks before dinner and a movie in the exhibition hall about turtles and the conservation work they do on the island. It was then time to wait for the turtles to land on the island and make their nest. It didn’t take too long, and at about 8.30pm we had the call from the ranger to come down to the beach with our torches switched off, to silently surround the enormous turtle who was laying her eggs in a wide hole in the sand. She laid 57 eggs, and the ranger carefully transferred them into a bucket before measuring her and noting her tag number for their research records.
We left her to rest and dig herself out of the deep sand hole to head back into the ocean (how, I have no idea) and followed the rangers to the turtle hatchery. They dug a deep hole in the sand and placed the eggs inside, noting the date and other information on a stick planted next to the hole, before covering the eggs and protecting them from local wildlife by a mesh fence around the hole. The hatchery held hundreds of similar fences, all lined up like a factory protecting the eggs for the next 50-60 days before they hatched.
We walked around to another part of the beach with a red plastic basket of hatchlings that just hatched (they usually dig their way out of the sand hole after sunset) and we watched as dozens and dozens of tiny turtles, no bigger than the size of a child’s hand, flipped and climbed all over each other in the basket. Then onto the sand they went, scampering towards the water where they would swim for the next three days, chill out for the next 15 years, before mating with a random turtle and travelling across the seas to lay her eggs in this very place. It was utterly amazing to imagine.
-Sarah
Sarah