Turtles are back!

Or better: I‘m back with the turtles!

I haven’t been writing the last days because I accompanied Mik to his turtle project on Bare Sand Island. A place off the coast of Darwin which is basically that:Bare sand.

So solar electricity and no running water, much less internet or phone connection. The turtle camp looks like probably turtle camps all over the world look like: A wooden, tarp-covered structure in the middle of nowhere, tents scattered all around it, 2 blackboards displaying shifts and tidal times and suntanned, slightly tired looking but smiling volunteers.

Those volunteers are the only people on the island, patrolling the 1,8km (yeah, I know, ridiculous;-) beach every 12hours, looking for nesting sea turtles and hatchlings.

From now and then a group of tourists gets dropped of by a tourboat and joins them. When he‘s around, Mik provides everybody with the scientific facts regarding turtles (and every other living being as a matter of fact). I also listened with awe to his talks, as I know little about the sea turtle species that is visiting the island the most: the flatback.

And as soon as hightide sets in, they start showing up! By far not as huge as the greens in Rekawa but much better proportioned in my opinion ;-). And really flat indeed. They have their own, more messy way of digging their egg-chamber and also of covering it up. They also seem quite unimpressed by people but Mik gave me a little demonstration how even the adults are irresistibly attracted by white light. (They change their course immediately! 😱)

And as they stick to the tides more accurately, sunset or sunrise nesters are not uncommon.

A vast, quiet, sandy beach at sunset and a turtle coming up to nest. Imagine the few people gone and it can’t get more beautiful than this!