Media Centre for Marine Conservation Expedition in the Seychelles

Lucia Ibarra

The evening beach walk came to a close with the last female hawksbill turtle of the day slowly pulling herself up the beach about 100m away. We watched from our vantage point and I took in the scene: the sun slowly descending to the horizon, the mix of blue sky and mist over the mountains and the slight haze over the beach. Bats swooped overhead from their roosts in the acacia trees that carpeted the hillsides. We followed her path up the beach pausing to measure the tracks and start filling out the slate with times and information. As she entered the undergrowth and began digging a body pit we arranged ourselves behind her with binoculars, water and slate, ready to wait and watch.

We sat enjoying the calm for about 15 minutes when suddenly she stopped digging and moved in a slow arc under the vegetation. Slowly but surely she turned around towards us and headed back out onto the beach. Her eyes free of the usual dug up sand were large black pools set her in her leathery old head. She glanced in our direction, but in our crouched and motionless position she didn’t appear to notice us as she slowly started to move down the beach. Each drag of her flippers caused her beak to push into the sand giving her a lethargic, exhausted air. I crept up behind her and measured the high arching carapace – 90cm. We both looked for tags in her flippers, but her slightly awkward way of dragging herself along with tucked in fins made it difficult to see any tags or scars, but it did explain her very narrow tracks. The turtle disappeared into the water and we continued our meander back to the hut as the sun set over the ocean.

Diary extract from Lucia Ibarra