Turtle action

Life is pretty hectic here, slight issue of various parts of the Gulf either descending into civil war or threatening to annihilate each other, and quiet little Oman stuck in the middle (literally ...). Certainly makes for interesting times ...

But while time off is at a premium, I did manage to take a whole 24 hours off the other day to go and visit the turtle sanctuary in Ras Al Jinz, a couple of hours drive from Muscat. Oman has five of the six species of turtles coming to lay their eggs on the beaches, and in high season (June to September) they even come and nest on the beaches of Muscat. This area though is a nature reserve so that they can get on with their business in peace and quiet.

This is the rather kookie visitors' centre - not quite finished yet, so lots of the interesting sounding exhibits have tantalising 'coming soon' signs on them, but the rooms are comfortable (even though they lack windows) and the food was good.

And this is the view - about a kilometre of nothing except this one lonely tree separating the humans from the beaches where the action is at ... People aren't allowed to just wander down, there are two guided walks, one at 8 in the evening and another at 4 in the morning for sunrise, and there are guides who shepherd people and make sure they're not disturbing the turtles - if they feel hassled, they stop laying and go back into the sea, which means they're full of unlayed eggs and die ... I was worried about how well the guides were able to keep people in check, especially having heard some horror stories, but in fact they were completely on top of it. No photography, no wandering off from the group, and only a few people at a time could get near a turtle.

The beach is pretty beautiful even without the turtles, beautiful soft sand and totally peaceful, but as you can see it wouldn't be a good place to go and relax, as it's absolutely covered in big holes - turtle nests all rammed up close to each other. They come and dig a huge hole at night, lay a few hundred eggs and then shuffle back into the sea before morning comes ...

And then a couple of months later, the little babies come out - we went to visit just at the end of the baby hatching season (although they do lay eggs and hatch all year round), and there were hundreds of the little critters underfoot. Actually quite nerve-racking, as you're trying to walk on the beach in the dark and avoid stepping on them, and they appear all around you. But how cute! Just a few centimetres across and full of beans as they boost down towards the sea and the future ... Sad to realise that of all the many thousands born (30,000 turtles nest in Oman every year), only 1 in a thousand is going to make it to adulthood - hope the little one I followed to the water is one of them! He looked pretty perky to me ...