Mmm! I love turtles!
Turtle covering her egg hole (but the rangers already took the eggs to place in hatchery)
Green turtle heading back into the sea
Turtles turtles hahaha, turtles turtles rah rah rah... teehee, we saw turtles!!!! We spent a night on Selingaan Island (aka Turtle Island). It's a group of islands that are protected by Malaysian and Philippine state park systems, as they are host to nesting turtles all year round. The ranger spots the turtles and then brings the visitors to see the turtle laying her eggs. Plop plop... The one we saw lay 117 eggs! It's shell was 105 cm long by 92 cm. Looking down the beach you could see about 5 turtles coming ashore to lay their eggs, so beautiful in the moonlight. They then take the eggs to the hatchery so they can hatch safely without any worry of predators or people stepping on them on the beach. You can hold the egg up to 2 h after it's laid without damaging the membrane, so we got to hold the egg! Kind of like a big golf ball. Anyhoo, then one of the best parts - we got to hold the baby turtles!!! They were 4-5 days old, because that's how long it takes for them to climb out of the hole, and so cute!!! They were about the size of the palm of your hand, and pretty strong! They just wanted to crawl into the water!
The next morning we got up early to circumvent the ranger and check out the turtles ourselves. We were super lucky, there were about 3 turtles still on the beach covering up their egg holes, and we got to see them pull themselves back into the sea and swim away. Then as we were walking we came across a little baby turtle that had hatched naturally that was zigzagging down the beach to it's home! Unfortunately, only 1% of the babies survive to maturity, ie 20-40 years. :( But we know that this one will be the lucky one.
Green turtle heading back into the sea
Turtles turtles hahaha, turtles turtles rah rah rah... teehee, we saw turtles!!!! We spent a night on Selingaan Island (aka Turtle Island). It's a group of islands that are protected by Malaysian and Philippine state park systems, as they are host to nesting turtles all year round. The ranger spots the turtles and then brings the visitors to see the turtle laying her eggs. Plop plop... The one we saw lay 117 eggs! It's shell was 105 cm long by 92 cm. Looking down the beach you could see about 5 turtles coming ashore to lay their eggs, so beautiful in the moonlight. They then take the eggs to the hatchery so they can hatch safely without any worry of predators or people stepping on them on the beach. You can hold the egg up to 2 h after it's laid without damaging the membrane, so we got to hold the egg! Kind of like a big golf ball. Anyhoo, then one of the best parts - we got to hold the baby turtles!!! They were 4-5 days old, because that's how long it takes for them to climb out of the hole, and so cute!!! They were about the size of the palm of your hand, and pretty strong! They just wanted to crawl into the water!
The next morning we got up early to circumvent the ranger and check out the turtles ourselves. We were super lucky, there were about 3 turtles still on the beach covering up their egg holes, and we got to see them pull themselves back into the sea and swim away. Then as we were walking we came across a little baby turtle that had hatched naturally that was zigzagging down the beach to it's home! Unfortunately, only 1% of the babies survive to maturity, ie 20-40 years. :( But we know that this one will be the lucky one.
posted by Sara and Dave at 6/13/2006 09:52:00 p.m.
1 Comments:
Your travel decisions are so interesting, Sara and Dave, and the writeups so interesting too. I assume your pre-trip research is really paying dividends. And I am happy you have the energy and the enthusiasm to get up early, sit in buses all day and do the other things to get more out of the trip.
Neal got back yesterday, and is relaxing -- as if travel across Canada was work -- for a few days. I have some chores for him though.
Love from Dad Y
Post a Comment
<< Home