This morning after breakfast we shared a taxi to the jetty with a couple who have also been staying at the hostel. The taxi driver was a young local girl and she was so funny, telling us all about her fear of cats, dogs and plants, and that she couldn’t watch the turtles lay eggs because she felt sick at the site of things in big numbers. She got goosebumps whilst even discussing it in the car.
The group was made up of about 10 people, the 4 of us from our hostel, a young American family, a solo traveller from London and an older couple who I think were German. We got a speedboat out to the island which took about an hour, you could actually see a southern phillipino island from our beach which was pretty unnerving because there is a true risk of kidnapping by pirates from these islands, and travel to this region is not advised back at home; we knew we would be close to them but not that close:
We had a briefing before we were shown to our rooms, it involved tonnes of times in a schedule to remember which we were bombarded with! Our rooms were in the middle of the island, basic but decent, and comfortable. It was a quick change and to chill out and go snorkelling on the beach.
The beach was stunning, white sands and there was already hatched turtle egg shells on the surface if you looked closely.
Snorkelling was reasonable, there was no turtles to be seen because the tide was out and too shallow, but plenty of different coloured fish, plenty of clown fish protecting their young in the reeds, starfish, eels, sea cucumber.
David spent hours in the water just snorkelling around, but I had enough after an hour and was also very conscious of burning! After a quick sunbathe to dry us off it was lunch time- basic options, not much to report. As we were walking into lunch we caught a glimpse of something moving in our periphery, it was a huge lizard at least 3 foot long, just next to us, once we looked around there were actually quite a few of these monitor lizards all around us.
After lunch more snorkelling, sunbathing, and reading. David again spent hours snorkelling, I did just over an hour, he saw hundreds f fish feeding from a section of coral, and the noise of them eating is quite loud under the water, like a big bowl of rice crispies crackling away. A quick change before watching the sunset, I was talking to other people on the tour before sunset, pretty interesting group of people, a zookeeper from London, an American family who actually lived in Vietnam. Their daughter was profoundly deaf but she was unbelievable, you would not know she was with her level of communication and very grown up for just 4. And a British couple who had lived in Australia for 6years but were moving back home, via visiting Asia, the girl was actually Irish and she was so funny and entertaining.
Sunset was nice, not the most spectacular but very tranquil. After his we were to go and watch a video and visit the exhibition centre before dinner. At the turtle conservation park islands(there are 3 islands, on,y one open to the public) the 2 main species, green turtle and hawksbill turtle lay eggs all year round although there are peak times which differ depending on species….. Dinner, again average, David unimpressed with the food and bought Pringles and an ice cream afterwards. Then the wait began, we didn’t quite realise that we would need to wait for such a long time but it made sense, wild animals don’t work on an agenda. The Irish girl came in from smoking outside saying there were 2 guys outside in bullet proof vests carrying massive machine guns, when we told her it’s because of the threat of pirates she was gobsmacked, she had no idea this was a problem out here, she went back out to ask them why they had the guns and apparently they looked at each other and then said sheepishly, were here to protect the tourists from the enemy… well that was her away and her boyfriend looked panic stricken. Around 9pm we were ushered to the hatchery, (an outdoor enclosed space with hundreds of eggs buried.)As the turtles lay their eggs they move them immediately to the hatchery to protect them from monitor lizards, and other predators such as crabs and birds. Some of the nests were hatching and had loads of baby turtles within the nest ( a single lay can carry up to 140 eggs) some had also escaped and were zooming around the enclosure like one of those wind up toys, they have special magnets in their heads which they use as a navigation system in the earths magnetic field, so all of the hatchlings were trying to navigate to the sea.
The older German couple were trying to pick them up, for some stupid unknown reason, but they were quickly told by the group not to. Along the fence of the hatchery there was a dead and half eaten hatchling on top of the fence with hundreds of huge red ants eating away. It must have been a predator, a bird or crab, that had dropped it up there, although impressively this is limited by the islands cat who guards the hatchlings.
About one hour after this we were taken to the beach, machine gun man in tow, where a huge turtle, had dug a nest and was laying her eggs, whilst they do this they go into a trance and are unaware of their environment so we could watch right up close, within touching distance, but in very dim light, you could barely see the size of her, she lay 91pingpong sized eggs. Once she had finished they put the torches on a little brighter so they could take her measurements, check her for disease and check if she was already tagged, which she was, this meant she had lay on the Island previously. She was absolutely massive and so majestical. Once we had had a good look and taken photos we left her to return to the sea. We then watched the process of the ranger burying the eggs in the hatchery, putting the date and I’d of the turtle who lay them on a wooden stick. Once again the German lady went to grab the eggs…..
Next it was time to release the recent hatchlings, they took them from the hatchery to the beach in the opposite side of the island in a shopping basket, the baby turtles follow light and also the vibrations of the water into the sea they have a yolk sac which provides them with food for up to a week, until they learn how to survive in the sea. We all sat by the shore and the ranger stood in the sea with a light, when the turtles were released, the majority made their way down to the sea immediately, some needed a little guidance, one tried to climb up David’s foot.
That night there were 14 more landings and 11more laying, with a total of 840 eggs, these are all now in the hatchery and will hatch and be released in the next 40-60days. They also released 400hatchlings over night, unfortunately only roughly 1% of these will survive, with their program they are seeing many more nestings, hopefully contributing to their survival!
South East Asia 2019 