T'ganu!!

The weekend at the Ma'Daerah Turtle Sanctuary was awesome. Splendid. Not only was it a great time off - it was my real clear holiday without having to worry about the resits or the results. The bus journey was uneventful, and took 6hours, not 8 like what Geowin told me. -_- The place was nice and quaint and quiet, a nice getaway I thought, plus it is so near the sea!

So cutting straight to the chase, the most exciting part was the night patrol duty, which since the gf and I were in the 1st group, took place between 8pm and 2am, though the 1st night we stayed up till 4am. The patrol rangers said that we were very lucky on the 1st night - the night of the 08/08/08 - 8 turtles came out and laid eggs. Wow talk about coincidence. Olympic turtles I'll say. Anyway we couldn't use flash photography but I managed to take a video of one of the turtles laying the eggs. Can't upload it though. Hmm.

But I got pics of the baby turtles that just hatched out from their eggs and they just climbed out of the sand in the hatchery! (yea the babies do have to climb out of the sand from 60cm below all by themselves) We also got to release them to the sea, which really was quite a brilliant sight seeing all the tiny things racing for the sea in a state of energized frenzy.

The hatchery

Baby turtles!

The second night patrol started quite late though as less turtles came up. So we were quite bored and started reading novels and Reader's Digest. There was a group of about 20-30 people from Intel Penang also spending the weekend with us - I though they were a pretty weird group.

The boring 2nd night - so far

Then we got the call that there were 4 turtles coming up. And this one below was the most stubborn and aggressive turtle of the lot. Sitting in darkness and silence for up to 2hours waiting for them to dig the resting hole and egg chamber is just about bareable, but this female decided to change her mind about the hole she dug 3 times! Imagine just sitting there waiting, then when you thought she was ready and we can go nearer and watch (cuz once they start laying eggs hey wouldn't stop no matter what or who) she decides to dig another hole for another 30-40mins.

To make things more frustrating, she only laid 20 eggs. Normal amount 100. But then the rangers noticed that this turtle was different from the other types. It was still under the 'Agar' species, but this one had a longer shell and totally different markings on the shell. Did I mentioned that she was super aggressive?

Was allowed to use flash this time for 'research'

Last day our bus was at 10.30am. Took a few more photos before leaving. Sweet.


And oh, happy 11 months baby. =)