Turtles by moonlight

We made our return journey down the wadi and regained the car for our last leg down to Ras al Jinz. We passed through the coastal city of Sur, which remains the boat building centre of Oman. Traditional wooden boats called Dhows are still built by hand here and we were lucky enough to find a couple moored just off the road for the night. In some places they offer trips for tourists but unfortunately we didn't have the time to experience it.

Our camping destination of Ras al Jinz was within the national reserve for Green Turtles that come to this beach to nest up to three times a year. They are very strict about access to the beach and so we had to wait for 9.30, but used the time to set up camp and enjoy a very agreeable fish barbeque in the full moon light.

These two pictures were taken within moments of each other, just by changing my camera settings I was able to capture two completely different shots. The actual light was somewhere in between the two - dark enough to have the above glow and light with the fire and lantern, but bright enough from the full moon that you could see just about everything without any other light. If you expand the below picture you should be able to see the stars in the sky...

Thierry slept in a camp bed in this structure, under the mosquito net, while we slept in a tent on the ground just to the right.

The campsite only had five groups staying for the night, but all the tourists that stay in hotels nearby make their way to the beach each night for the show. The lead Omani ranger gives us a short briefing of what the turtles do here and how often and let me tell you, the man is hysterical. It is impossible to convey his accent and word choice through the medium of a blog; you merely have to experience it for yourself. He was quite adamant that we tourists are always wrong with our comments about turtles once we return from holiday. Quote, 'big big wrong' - this one's for Marika, Venla and Thierry!

The turtles come and lay between 60 -140 eggs depending on their size, up to three times a year, and only once they've reached 25 years old (they can live to 150 years old). They then won’t return to nest again for four years. If they lay their eggs at 10 in the evening, then two months later, those eggs will hatch at 10 in the evening and the babies will make what is often an ill-fated attempt to reach the sea. Only 1 in 1000 baby turtles make it through the gauntlet of foxes, sea-gulls, crabs and fish that eat them as either eggs or newborns.

We made our way down to the beach and were able to see two turtles in various stages of the nesting process. Pictures below are a bit blurry, but with no flash it was the best we could do and hopefully gives you an idea of the scene... we were allowed to get really close, but not touch. They did however pass around a baby turtle they had saved which was only about 5", so sweet.

First they come up and dig a half metre deep hole in which they lay their eggs. They then cover this, drag themselves two and a half to three metres away and dig another similarly sized hole. This one they leave uncovered in an attempt to confuse the foxes looking for eggs. We have our doubts about the success of this decoy hole, see the survival rate above. The whole process takes anywhere between 1.5 to 5 hours depending on the time of year.

We saw one turtle, about 1m large, digging her decoy hole (see above) and another one finishing her decoy hole and then climb out, just past Thierry, and make her way into the welcome waves.

With the moonlight we were able to see her shadow as her exhausted body moved purposefully through the crashing waves and out into the sea. It was extremely impressive to see these large and docile creatures going about the natural lifecycle.