SEATRU - Day 2

May 4, 2008 (Sunday)
Waking up in a beach like this, it definitely makes you feel so alive. So on the 2nd day here, we spent our day getting to know the place and people better. We spent the day in the beach, in the sand that was whiter than snow. It's pure fun to be able to jump up and down in a gorgeous place like this, worry free ;p

This is what we call, "buat bodoh" - in English, just do something foolish. Ha.

The Jit Sin United

We actually spent the earlier part of the day snorkeling in our territory - which is known as the Turtle Bay to the tourists. Pictures were in JiaXing's camera, and I havent got hold of them yet. I saw a turtle swimming away really quickly, and schools of fishes and corals which were really beautiful.

Something really funny happened. So Adi brought 8 of us out to the sea, and we're in our life jackets and masks. In the sea, you don't quite know who are your people, who are not. Every snorkeler looked the same- everyone was in this bright orange jacket. When we were swimming back to our shore, someone else actually thought we were his friends. So he followed us, all the way to our beach.  Keep a long story short, we did everything we could to let his friends who were on the boat what was so far away from the beach know that the random stranger was stranded here on our beach. And he was saved, after being stranded for close to an hour? Ha.

So back to business, we had to do nest checks under the hot sun, and that's the spirit of it. Even though the nicely tanned body of Adi didnt seem like a reward to all of us, it was absolutely exciting to see turtles, hatchlings!

Adi's trying to dig a hole, as deep as the mother turtle did -to reach the eggs, to check if they're fine. They arent always fine. They face threads and dangers from the very first moment  that they were being laid- stupid damn fire ants, monitor lizards, ghost crabs are 3 of the most common attacks.

This is the 27th sector. The whole stretch of beach is divided into up to 31 or 32 sectors. (I can't remember the exact number, but it's 30-ish) This will help us locate where does a turtle land and lay egg at, and where each nest is.
The nests - each stick will have some information written on it for us to identify different nests. And it's being covered by a net to help keep monitor lizards away.
Welcoming this hatchling to the world.
Baby turtles- if they're already crawling up and reaching the land during day time, we'll keep them safe, and release them at night. This will help them improve the chances from being eaten by other fishes- because, if they crawl across the beach and swim into the sea, there are many many fishes that may just eat them up during day time. At this point of time, they do not have the power to defend themselves yet.
The track of the monitor lizard
Adi joked that this is the bicycle. Ha ;p It's not. It's the tracks of hatchlings. When we see this in the day, it means there were hatchlings that made it back to the sea last night!
When the night comes, it's time for the peaceful wait for the mother turtles again. Do you see the turtle eggs down there?

From all that I've said, all that we did was to help the turtles - to give them a better chance to survive. However much that we do, a turtle's life is still very fragile, and is subjected to many, way too many threads in this world. For what it's worth, this is going to make a difference.