90 days of holidays, it's never intended to be left blank, but incredibly meaningful.
Beach, sunshine and tanned are doubtlessly not my thing. Yet, why not? Gutsy I am **chuckle
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First close encounter with turtle at Turtle Park, Bali,
aka the break up trip with my beloved ex.
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Bringing no expectation but a belief that it's definitely going to be awesome, I indeed had a fantastically pleasant 5 days in Perhentian for turtle conservation.
Had been wanting to see turtles since ages ago, >>> was my second time having close encounter with turtle (the first time was not even worth mentioning).
After ~40 minutes of boat ride from Kuala Besut Jetty, (having to change boat in the middle of the ocean) I arrived at Coral Bay, being led straight to the cozy wooden house in the bush, a little but complete wooden house, surrounded by trees, but only eight steps away from the seaside, the perfect place for my five days stay.
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| Hammick |
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| Work space |
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Kitchen
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I guess Nick was able to read how enthusiastic I was, and being unable to sit down quietly and do nothing, he brought me out for the first snorkel to look for turtles! I was lucky to see about five turtles during the first snorkeling, and I was astonished by Nick, who was in Perhentian for about four months, and was able to tell the name or code of each turtle that we saw! Also, Petros did mention to me earlier that they recognized the turtles by looking at their faces! I was like, seriously?! They are turtles! They do not have different faces,urhmmm, do they? WELL ACTUALLY THEY DO! EACH AND EVERY TURTLES HAS SIGNIFICANT AND UNIQUE FACIAL SCALES. The conservation programme takes photos of the turtles, recording each side of its face, its back (shell) and flippers. These photos act as photo ID of each turtle. After snorkeling and photo taking, we matched the turtles we saw with the database. By recording the time and places of turtle activities, the programme is able to keep track with the numbers and I believe that the figure will be further utilized by institutions for research and conservation purpose.
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| Can you see the difference? |
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| See the scales? |
Yeah, snorkeling is daily routine for the programme, twice a day.
I was let to use the shower and Nick cooked me something nice, except with the garlic and onion ** laugh. Kidding Nick, it was not scrumptious but delicious enough to fill my grumbling stomach.
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Thanks Nick!
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I was extremely excited for the second night, as I was dutied for the night patrol. I enjoyed the boat ride to the nesting beach, the breeze was warm and the ocean was calm, and the sky that evening was so blue, WITH RAINBOW!
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| Packed dinner prepared by Charlotte and Yun |
The night patrol was meant to look out for turtle eggs theft (both human or non-human) and also, records of nesting activities. I wasn't lucky enough to see any turtles coming up to nest, but... ... I GOT TO RELEASE MANY MANY MANY HATCHED BABIES BACK TO THE SEA!
THEY WERE JUST EXTRAORDINARILY, SPECTACULARLY, TERRIFICALLY ADORABLE!
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| <3 Photo credit to Kevin |
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| The babies were taking their own sweet time to get use to the sand, to feel everything, turning on their senses. |
We were assisting the Department of Fisheries for this. We collected the eggs and put them in the fenced hatching ground. If the babies are hatched at night, they will be released right away; if it happens during the day, they will be kept until night to avoid being eaten by the predator, to increase their chances of survival. yea, they are just so tiny.
Looking at them crawling into the sea, wondering if they are swimming or being whirled away by the wave, yes I was so worried but... they gonna survive the obstacles. YES they will, well, some of them will,
1 out of 10,000 will.
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| Was pretty scared, it was quite a long night for me, but yea, tiredness and sleepiness overtook my fear, slept soundly, blanketed with the breeze. |
Besides, with limited resources, creativity was eagerly needed for handcraft and arts. Charlotte and I made some coconut trees, out of trash, and created a beach-like model for their awareness campaign later.
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| Pretty impressed with the realistic size turtle model made by Nick |
There were some other interesting activities but the babies part was the most worth mentioning memory, I mean it.
I abhor heat and sun but Petros told me that I gonna adore it towards the end of the programme. Well Petros, I dont think so, but I am kinda willing to sacrifice a little for all these cutie pies.
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| These cutie pies, look sooooo fragile. Bless you cuties <3 |
Hands-on contribution to animal conservation was indeed an admirable exposure and experience. Words from others can never be understood until we experience it ourselves. I crave for more, and yes the craving will be satisfied.
