Fast forward, as I say eight or so hours, and we were approaching the beach that we were to camp out on for the weekend…..the amusing thing was that it was at this stage the driver of the boat admitted that he had never done this trip before and so we had to start shouting from the sea to the few people that we saw along the beach to find out where we should be going….the funnier thing was that we were looking for our trip organiser whose name was….wait for it “Romeo” so you can imagine ten “whities” shouting to the locals “Romeo, where is Romeo, we are looking for Romeo!” We eventually, after several attempts and several waves landing square on us and soaking us through, found Shell Beach, where we were to spend the next few nights.
Shell Beach is a conservation area where giant turtle come to lay eggs. The team of staff that live there have built a lovely camp and set up tents for the visitors that come; they also cook really good grub and generally make everyone feel very much at home.
The first night we actually jumped on the boat again as turtles had been seen further up the coast on another beach. Again we got soaked out on the sea and I believe I may have uttered what has become some what of an infamous quote at this point which was “ I am on my third pair of pants and I haven’t even seen a **** turtle yet!!!” Anyway my patience with re-dressing several times did eventually pay off as we were very fortunate to see several turtles ‘do their thing’. They are amazing; they groan a lot during the initial egg laying and then do this spinning thing were by they churn up the sand so that they hide the entrance to the hole where the eggs are. This is order to fool potential predators. Occasionally some of the lazier girls don’t quite make it far enough up the beach so the staff dig up the eggs and “plant” them in a sheltered area, which is more appropriate and that won’t get washed away.
Over the weekend we were lucky enough to see a couple of laying adults. There was however a slight traumatic event…. It started with a very innocent game of charades around the camp fire, all of a sudden someone screamed when we realised three baby turtles were on a suicidal mission to the middle of the fire (they follow light….whoops, how guilty did we feel?) anyway…. a few unfortunately didn’t make it but it woke us up and we were thrown into action when we realised that all of a sudden the floor was covered in very cute baby turtles. After the (it had to happen) initial glamour shots we started to take them down the sea, many were a little reluctant to take the plunge but we finally persuaded them that this was indeed the better option.
Later in the evening we returned from seeing some more adults and decided to hold a short “moment” for the ones that didn’t make it (and yes we documented the event again!) …anyway we noticed that another bunch of babies were pushing their way through the sand, so again we jumped into action and did our bit for the turtle population.
After Shell Beach we headed around the coast again to Mabaruma. Here we met up briefly with Celia, another VSO, had a nice meal and night in “Brooms” guesthouse before heading back to Georgetown and to work.
The trip was definitely up there with one of the best, though so far there has not been a trip that I haven’t enjoyed …….I can’t complain. Hope you enjoy the pictures.
No comments:
Post a Comment