Turtle Watching

Turtle watching began at 9:30 PM which is usually about the time I am crawling into bed, party animal that I am. I went across the street to the Travelpost who had organized the trip. There was a large group of about fifteen of us going. They took us in two vans. My van held me, three young Dutch women, a solo Dutch man, and a Dutch family of 5 plus our driver. You can see that the Dutch like going to Malaysia on holiday.

Generally speaking, I am not a scaredy person. I'm jumpy when people sneak up behind me in my cubicle at work, but I am rarely scared of other people or of going places alone. I am, however, very suspicious. I sometimes wonder if I'm being "taken" or conned by people. Even though I create these elaborate schemes in my mind which these people may be guilty of, I am usually not assertive, brave, or stupid enough to say anything. That said, as we piled into the bus and started driving, I had a fleeting thought that this was indeed an elaborate scheme to kidnap me, an American, and a lot of Dutch people, to give us to terrorists. I was under the impression that we were going to the Turtle Sanctuary at Club Med which is less than 5 minutes from the Travelpost. After driving for 20 minutes, my fleeting notion of nefarious activities had been upgraded to "maybe they are..." As we turned down a small street and then onto a dark, dirt road, it was all I could do not to yell "The government won't do anything for one silly girl!" and "My family is poor!" to deter the "tour guides" from turning me over to terrorists. I was still not completely convinced of my safety when we piled out of the van onto a very dark beach. But as I followed the one person with a flashlight to some activity on the beach and spied the massive sea turtle in a deep hole, all of my worries were cast out into the sea.

The turtle was probably about four feet long and three feet wide. She had already laid her eggs and was in the process of burying them. Our group had been joined by another group so there were now close to 40 people standing in a circle around the poor girl, snapping photos with flashes the whole time. The tour guide told us not to take pictures from the front because the flashes would bother the turtle, but no one listened to him. Nobody but me, that is. I always do as I'm told. :)

The turtle certainly worked hard. She would fling dirt using her huge flipper/legs. She would stop to rest, and her entire massive body would lift a few inches as she took a couple of deep breaths. Then she would do it all over again. We watched her do this for about half an hour. To some, it may sound like 29 minutes too long, but I loved every minute of it. I enjoyed sitting on the beach just appreciating the beauty of nature. Once she had buried her eggs, she seemed to be having difficulty getting out of her hole so the tour guide gave her a little boost from behind. She slowly waddled her way back to the sea. It was wonderful to watch this 100 year old creature crawl into the water and glide smoothly into the water as the waves crashed against her enormous shell. And then she was gone.

The tour guide's helpers dug up the eggs, and they passd one around for everyone to feel. They were a little bit bigger than a golf ball and smooth and fragile feeling like a ping pong. Again, in my slightly paranoid, suspicious way, I wondered what they were going to do with all of the eggs. I wondered if there was some sort of black market for turtle eggs, and we were not only taking part in the ghastly machinations of obtaining the merchandise but were also giving them money! What a racquet! Trying to keep my "outraged crusader" instincts in check, I calmly and curiously asked the tour guide what they did with the eggs. He told me that they take them back to the hatchery. This somewhat satisfied me, but I still was a little leary of the whole thing. By the way, our turtle laid a total of 102 eggs.

From the beach, we again piled into the van and proceeded to drive down another dirt road and turn into a muddy parking area. I was sure that this was where the kidnapping would take place. By the expressions on the faces of the other passengers, I could tell that I was not the only crazy paranoid in the van. We climbed out of the van and walked toward a light where we found a bunch of local guys and 5 coolers filled with baby turtles. They were so cute. They were crawling all over each other, rolling over each other, and flipping onto their little backs. I picked up some of the ones on their backs and turned them over. They felt soft and rubbery.

My nosiness and irrational concern for the turtles caused me to wonder what these men were planning on doing with all of these baby turtles. Since our tour guide had not yet arrived, I questioned the random, confused Malaysian men who were there. They just looked at me like I had three heads. So I gave up.

When our tour guide arrived, he explained that these baby turtles had just hatched that day. The innocent men who I had accosted with my incomprehensible, accusatory interrogation brought the coolers of turtles down to the sea. Each tourist took a baby turtle and carried it down to the sea also. At the same time, we all let our baby turtles go and watched them waddle into the sea. It was fantastic watching over a hundred baby turtles go off to sea, to their home, to life. I named my baby turtle Odyseuss, after the main character in Homer's The Odyssey. In the story, Odyseuss encounters adventures and obstacles as he travels by sea to his home after the Trojan War. I hoped my baby turtle would have her own adventures and obstacles at sea and maybe one day return to the same beach safely. After setting the turtles free, we got into our vans and went back to the Travelpost. I returned to my chalet, content with the knowledge that I had rescued the baby turtles from Black Market Turtle Soup and relieved by my narrow escape from the radical extemist terrorists which do not exist in Malaysia.

Despite being preoccupied with my double mission of saving myself from terrorists and saving the turtles from the black market, I was able to learn a bit about sea turtles. Our turtle was a Green Turtle. Turtles lay 80-110 eggs each time. The same turtle will lay eggs 8-12 times in a season, laying a total of over 1000 eggs season. Turtles return to the same beach where they were born to lay eggs. The incubation period for the turtle eggs is 6 weeks. That's it! Thanks.