When people hear I have been involved in wildlife conservation for over 25 years, they say 'how are we doing?' or more commonly 'Is there hope for African wildlife.' I try not to be a buzz kill but facts are facts, well, at least in most parts of the world. We lost 25,000 elephants last year, how does one sugarcoat that? You don't. There are less than 24,000 African lions left in the world, over a century ago we had 200,000. Every great ape, is rare, threatened or endangered. You get the point.
So, when I am part of something that makes me feel hopeful, I hold it, I relish it, I savor it.
Kwa Zulu Natal. Known as the Wild Coast. Protected shoreline. Kilometers of untouched sand dunes, thriving coral, coastal forest and pristine beach. I am here for Christmas. Africa has some of the most incredible wild beaches and shorelines. It is after dinner and a group of us gather at 9 pm for the turtle walk. It is dark and rainy. Strangers, we gather in the hope of seeing turtles, loggerhead or leatherback. Our guide is Zulu. Sithembiso. He gives us all rain ponchos and off we go, together to the beach, in the dark and in the rain. Swiss, British, German, French and me, the sole American.
The sand is soft and we trudge along in the dark, in the rain, the walking is difficult as you cannot see where you are going, the sand soft and Sithembiso keeping a brisk pace. The sliver of the moon gives us a bit of light, the air is warm, waves crashing and smell of the ocean magnificent. Crabs dance along the edge of the waves.
We walk 45 minutes and do not see anything, so Sithembiso tells us to turn around. There is a six year old French boy. Blond hair. He jumps and giggles as the crabs dart through his legs. He is holding Sithembiso's hand. The contrast of a tall, handsome Zulu man holding the hand of a young, short, blond French boy, both draped in ponchos, together looking for turtles, is brilliant. It is a lovely scene in so many ways. The hand holding, the keen interest in wildlife, the waves, the smell and sea spray, young/old, black/white, who cares, no boundaries. I walk behind them in the dark with a smile, breathing it in.
But what about the turtles? Well, no luck that night. Those who know me well, know I become a bit crazy when it comes to wildlife. So the following night I wake at 2.10 am. Take a shot of coffee, bundle myself in warm clothes, despite the 25 degree temp, and make my way to the beach to meet Sithembiso. We need to cover more distance to find the turtles, so we jump into a safari vehicle with a family from the Netherlands and drive north towards Mozambique along the shore.
We see plenty of turtle paths in the sand and you can clearly see where they emerged from the sea and scampered up to the dunes. The first turtle we see is a loggerhead. A beautiful female who has finished laying her eggs and is moving back to the ocean. It is a privilege to see. I almost feel as if we are intruding in the dark. Turtles are very sensitive to light so we use no torches. Sithembiso has a red light torch he uses when she is moving back to the ocean, and he only flashes it behind her.
Further up shore we see bigger tracks. We hop out of the vehicle and carefully approach a large sand nest of sorts, in the dark it just looks like a big mountain of sand, and yet sand is flying off the top. I am having a difficult time in the dark understanding what I am seeing and then once I realize what I am looking at I drop to my knees in the sand, nodding my head in disbelief and saying to myself 'holy shit.' A six foot long turtle, a leatherback, has finished laying her eggs and she is now covering the hole on top of the mound with sand. She is huge, absolutely magnificent. She is using her massive flippers to shovel the sand into the hole to protect her eggs. It is awesome. I can hear her breathing, snorting a bit as she does her work. We watch, listen in awe. We are silent, barely breathing. It is like she is on an alter because she has build up a big mound to lay her eggs. Once done she slowly comes off the nest and heads back towards the ocean. I am literally flabbergasted at how big she is. We follow at a respectful distance to the ocean shore and off she goes into the water, gone.
We continue further up the beach and find another leatherback. She is just building her nest, so we stay far away, and wait. It is now about 4 am, still dark. We sit and wait, listening to the waves crashing as she creates the right environment for her eggs.
Sithembiso checks on her and once she has started laying the eggs, we carefully and quietly approach from behind. We can see the deep hole she has dug and in the hole are eggs. I drop to my knees again in awe in the sand, watching this enormous creature dropping eggs into the hole. The eggs are bright white, like ping pong balls, and they keep dropping. Now the sky is getting a little lighter so we can see this really well. When she is done, she uses her flippers to back fill the hole, every so often padding the soft sand so that it is firm.
We decide to leave her and as we make our way back to the lodge a sliver of orange is coming up over the ocean. I breath in the salt air as my mind races with images of the turtle and what we have just seen. The whole experience leaves a mark. The idea that in the dark, in the middle of the night, a bunch of people on vacation, so curious and interested in seeing turtles, are crawling along the sand to get a view of a turtle. Hope. There is hope. If people care enough to do this, surely, if given the right path, they will help to protect it. That is our challenge.
