Have you ever seen a turtle swimming in the ocean? I’ve seen them over a dozen times while scuba diving and almost every single time, I’ve stopped to stare. It doesn’t matter that I’ve seen one before or that my diving buddy is going to abandon me if I stay any longer, there is just something really, really beautiful about turtles in the ocean. The way they look as they swim leisurely by, the way the light reflects off their colours, the patterns on their skin seen through crystal clear waters on a beautiful day… I know I’m gushing but I’m just trying to capture that delicious thrill and awe I feel everytime I see a turtle in the sea up close.
There was this one time in Sipadan, and that is one of my favourite turtle memories, when a huge, gorgeous green sea turtle, like the one in the picture, came swimming towards us from the surface. The weather and waters were to-die-for that day and we saw the not-so-little chap coming from a fair distance. As it neared us, I stopped moving. It was going to come right by me and I didn’t even want to breathe because I didn’t want my bubbles to scare it away. It came so close I swear I could have reached out and touched it, but I didn’t. I looked it in the right eye and tried to remember every detail so I could absorb the moment and forever lock it in my brain… and then it was engulfed in a flood of bubbles, from Y who was just below it. (But it did not swim away.)
All of this to try and share a little bit about my fascination with turtles, and to explain why I signed up for the WWF: Egg=Life Campaign. I don’t usually put banners on my site – this is my first – but when I thought about that turtle in Sipadan and the many others like it, I had to do something.
(Picture taken from National Geographic.)
