Another iconic moment in our family adventure was witnessing the breeding cycle of the turtles around the Ningaloo reef area.
During our daily beach walks and sunsets at the beach we were greeted with visions of double decker turtles. Most days you could not walk to the beach and not see at least 1 mating couple bobbing around the lagoon or washed up on shore awaiting the end of the mating game. These guys are usually glazed over and in a different state of mind caring not at all about us passing humans. Early afternoon we would find 6 or so female turtles sleeping up on Trisel beach to find reprieve from the male turtles eager to mate as soon as possible.
The ugly side to the mating season finds female turtles being drowned by eager males fighting over her and pushing her down unable to surface for a breath of air; inevitably we find the odd turtle dead on the beach. For the males again it is not all a night out with the ladies, in their struggle to mate with as many females as possible they bite at each other’s genitals leaving some tender and swollen bits which make for a sorry site and can make a grown man cringe.
In the following weeks the turtle tracks begin to be left on the beach and we plan a night on the beach to view the egg laying take place. The kids are prepped in their warm cloths and excited with the possibility of an up close and personal experience with the big turtles we visit at the beach nearly every day as the sun goes down.
The cameras are all set even though we can’t use the flash we hope to get one photograph to keep from our turtle encounter as a reminder. With no illusion that this will not be a fast paced action packed process due to the involvement of a turtle, I have packed the fishing gear to kill time waiting for the rounded ladies to put in an appearance and mosey up the beach.
We all jump in the car and motor down, as always it is a bit of a rush to get everyone ready and in the car to make sunset from the sand dunes. After much jumping, running back and forth and a hasty drive to the beach all four of us make it to see the sunset over the magnificent Indian Ocean, Romandar and I enjoy a beer as the sun melts away.
The kids play making sand castles and drawing pictures in the sand while I put the trusty fishing rod out to land the big one. Romandar kicks back and admires the stars for a while then notice one large turtle making its way up the star lit beach; we unanimously decide to sit tight while she makes her way up from the water. As we sit another turtle pops out of the small shore breaker waves not more than 5 meters in front of us. Romandar and I look at each other with the face expression that say it all “WHAT THE??” WACK! The silent serenity is broken by a shark fleeing with my hook and line, the drag is wising off and the rod is buckling over, not sure what the turtle thought was going on but she didn’t stick around to find out and faded back into the ocean as quick as she arrived. Moments after the shark bit my tackle off, I re rigged the line and we gathered up our gear and move a bit closer to the turtle Romandar spotted moving up the beach so we can keep tabs on the laying process.
Elokin and I crawled up to check its progress to see it was still digging and moved back to the group waiting well back from the nesting area. Another 20 odd minutes passed and we moved in closer again. I crawled right up behind her to check if she was laying as the sand had stopped flying out of the hole. The turtle was in the last stages of digging the cavern to lay her eggs. Again I crawled back and as a family we got ready to crawl up behind very quietly to see the eggs being laid. Hendrix was pretty much asleep by this time so he rode on my back like a cowboy after a bad day with a group of Indians, flopped over with no movement.
The time was upon us, Elokin was delighted to be this close seeing the big green lady dropping eggs into the hole. Hendrix awoke for long enough to see what was going on but struggled to find his enthusiasm threw his bleary half shut eyes and went back to sleeping. Of cause the two big kids Romandar and I had been in awe of the events taking place and again we are left saying does it get any better than this…….
We had plenty of time to observe as they lay approximately 120 eggs at a time. She finished laying the eggs and set to covering the hole, firstly using her back flippers to cover the cavern up and following up by flinging sand backward as she moved forward to conceal the entire hole that she had dug.
By the end I think we all looked similar to Hendrix, we called it a night and headed for home.
In the weeks to follow on our morning walks we found a distraught turtle after enduring the exhausting effort of digging and laying her eggs she found herself stuck in a rock hole only inch’s bigger than herself and unable to get out. All four of us took positions to assist the lass out of the rock confine. My god turtles are heavy; you really don’t want to have your fingers stuck between a struggling turtle and the rocks. After a few heave hoe’s we had her out on the flat rocks and headed for the ocean and looking like she was no worse off for the trouble.
Now for the final finale the cute wee little baby ones….. We had numerous attempts at finding these little guys, waiting nights and mornings on the beach, walking back and forth across many a beach. We even GPS marked the holes we had seen turtles laying in and returned approximately 60 days after the event hoping to see them coming out. At the end of the day it all comes down to pot luck, however, one trick we found very effective is to find a baby turtle track and follow these back to the nest, if luck is on your side little black and white speedy turtles will be emerging from the sand. As it turns out luck is on our side and the nose of a turtles pops out followed by its head and front flippers, in a blink of an eye it is out and off making its way to the lowest horizon, the ocean. Squeal’s of delight fill the air from the kids and Romandar and we find the small hole erupting with baby turtles clambering over one another, some heading the wrong way, fortunately for them the kids are quick to assist and block the path to point them in the right direction to avoid the ghastly ending for a little guy that goes into the dunes to the East.
Down the beach the hoard runs to quickly enter the water, some wash back in with the shore breakers and others find more sheltered entry points making a swift entry. The black tipped and white tipped shark fins become very apparent to us onlookers but I’m sure the baby turtles are taken by surprise when faced by their swift ending. It is not hard to see during this process why the odds for a turtles survival are only 1 in 1000 make it to adult hood, between the crabs, sea birds, fish, sharks, fox’s, goannas and whatever else stands in their way during their life cycle.
Even the kids notice the sharks and as always we give them the hard truth about the food chain, lucky our kids know and understand where our food comes from and are quick to understand everything else needs to eat as well and get on with enjoying the cute little turtles running down the beach ensuring they do what they can to aid them to reach the water without interfering with the natural process. When they are all in the water and all the action has subsided we head off hearing each other’s encounters and humorous retakes of the baby turtle interaction.
What an amazing place……..
