25 May 2013 - Kuantan Day 2: Late Night Turtle Watching

After our dinner at Pak Su Seafood Restaurant, we drove up to the border of Terenganu and Pahang to experience late night turtle watching.  I remember when I was a small kid, around Jerlene's age, I had experienced it once.  The images of the mother turtle still float into my mind every now and then.  We followed the GPS that led us to a beach but we were not sure if that was the right place.  We then drove along the beach and at one end, we saw some locals and decided to ask for information.  There was a man who said that he can bring us to a private beach where we were guaranteed to see turtles for a fee.  He claimed that his family owns a turtle sanctuary and their business motto is to protect the turtles.  After negotiating and agreeing to the amount, we followed his van to another part of the beach.  We passed by a turtle sanctuary before reaching the beach.  At that moment, there was one turtle moving around the beach looking for an ideal nesting place.  All visitors had been warned not to use camera flash when taking photo.

When I saw the turtle, I realized it was different from the one that I saw when I was a kid.  It was much smaller in size.  I believe this is called the Green Turtle while the one that I saw previously was Leatherback Turtle.  More info on turtles in Malaysia can be found here.

While waiting for the turtle to start laying eggs, the organizer brought out a few turtle eggs for us to see and feel.  It looks like a ping pong ball but it was actually pretty soft.

The next highlight was to release baby turtles into the sea.  All visitors were told to form a line on the beach facing the sea.  We were then given a baby turtle each.  At this moment, we were told that we could take photos with flash.  This was our first time holding a baby turtle in our hands.  It was a pretty weird feeling when the turtle's flippers kept flipping in your hands.

Initially I thought the kids will be scared and dropped the turtle but I was wrong.  They actually find it interesting though I had to keep reminding them not to press on the turtle too hard.

Finally at the count of three, all of us let go of the turtles and they were veru quick to rush into the sea.  We were told that we had to stand at a certain distance from the sea to release them so that when they grew up, they will remember to return here during their nesting season.  We were also sad to hear that the survival rate of these baby turtles are very low.  Less than 5% of the turtles that were released will eventually manage to survive in the ocean.  There were many predators out there waiting to feast on these adorable baby turtles.

After that, the mother turtle on the beach finally started to lay eggs.  At any one time, turtle can lay around 70-80 eggs.

This was really a different experience for all of us, especially the children. On our way back to our hotel, all the kids fell asleep in the car.