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Turtles everywhere
I was on holiday last week, which, together with being sick this week, is why things have been a bit slow here. The highlight of the holiday was the invasion of the hotel by 50 or 60 green turtles.
We were at the Emerald Bay Hotel, in Induruwa on the west cost of Sri Lanka. It is small and not luxurious but very cosy and friendly place on a lovely stretch of beach. We were having a few drinks with some other guests we had got to know, when we saw a stream of baby turtles coming down the steps from a door that opened onto and area that was open to the beach.
They tumbled down the steps and moved surprisingly fast across the floor. They moved by whirring their flippers in circles, rather like a clockwork toy.
After a few seconds of hesitation (would you know the correct response to invading turtles) most of us started rushing around picking them up. My four year old daughter climbed onto a chair because she was worried that she might accidentally step on one.
I concetrated on those turtles wondering off from the main body, picking up fewer than other people (Beverly from Suffolk collected 13), but resucing one that was about to be attacked by a cat.
We released the turtles on the beach: largely the work of one of the hotel staff. While doing this, we noticed that they tended to move towards the light of our torches. This explained why they had come them wrong way (to the hotel rather than the sea): they had been attracted by the lights.
It is thanks to the work of people who conserve them that there are turtles at all on the crowded west coast. Turtle hatcheries buy eggs (that might otherwise be eaten) and rebury them of safe stretches of sand.
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