While in Jamaica, we stayed at our resort the entire time except for a sea turtle conservation excursion we took one afternoon. The whole family enjoyed and appreciated this experience more than words can describe. The conservation effort was led by a British researcher who moved to Jamaica 16 years ago to follow the sea turtles. His team's efforts have saved the lives of thousands of sea turtles from being hunted by the locals (eggs and adults alike). The local men follow adult female sea turtles at night when they come ashore to lay their eggs (they can lay up to 200 eggs at a time) and hunt them and their eggs for meat and because it is considered a sign of power and manhood in their culture.
The research team saves the eggs by hiding the nests until hatch time and then releases many nests' baby turtles at one time. These baby turtles then make it out to sea (where half survive the journey to the deep) and then the females come back to the same beach decades later to lay their eggs! The day we witnessed the conservation effort, we released 52 baby sea turtles into the ocean (the smallest release they have had in a while). Two days before, they released 432! Just imagine!
We all got to wash our own sea turtle in the ocean water and bring them back to their nest so they could crawl out to sea by themselves! It was so surreal and interactive, like nothing we've ever experienced before. Even the boys took care of their own baby sea turtle, and appreciated it so much! We were so fortunate to have such an amazing experience, and being a huge animal lover myself, I especially appreciated witnessing this phenomenon occurring in it's natural environment! The boys were so mesmerized as well. They couldn't stop raving about it even after our vacation! Arjun even thanked Jai Jai Bhagwan for the sea turtles all on his own during prayers that night and for several nights after. It was so sweet! I'm pretty sure the sea turtle excursion was their favorite activity of our entire trip!
Amazing experience! Arjun still talks about baby turtles!
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