Olive ridley

Every now and then there would be a mention of Olive Ridley,a turtle species,in the newspapers.The uniqueness of the name used to be a riddle to me.In adyar times I have also found mention of 'turtle walk' where a group of interested people explained the turtle walk adventure and readers were encouraged to participate in the same.While I have had no idea what this is about, it used to stick in my memory as something out of the ordinary and hence worth trying. Recently, i had gathered it has to do with conservation of a special species of turtles and the walk which has something to do with that objective starts at Neelangarai beach at midnight and takes the route along the beach and reach besant nagar beach early morning!I had immediately made up my mind that i wanted to do it NOW. February is the season for this activity and when pops said her arun anna is organising it from her school, we made definite plans.

Yesterday at 11 pm we were heading for neelangarai beach and sharply looking out for shanthi hospital, where we need to turn left and head straight towards the beachfront.We were the first batch to arrive.Some excitement was provided by our driver who tried to take an u turn in the sand and got the car nicely boxed in there.Slowly the place began to fill up with olive ridley enthusiasts and pops spotted arun anna in a sailor cap and the adventure was flagged off.A bunch of students of journalism from a city college were the last to arrive; they came by a share auto and actually 15 of them emerged which could actuallys seat not more than 5!

We sat in a circle in true KFI style and were briefed about the vision and mission of the exercise. Ask questions arun anna said. And questions flowed easily from the kids who formed a sizeable portion.There were former and present senior kfi students who were actually the SCOUTS, trained in spotting the nests;parents(and aunts and cousins!) of KFI students, and an assortment of conservation enthusiasts.January to march is the nesting season of these turtles and hence on weekends these trips are organised to spread awareness and also collect the eggs. Orissa is THE place where the ridleys come in tens of thousands.Interesting fact was these ridleys come to the exact place to nest where they were born!They travel all the way from Sri lanka to come and lay their eggs here as it is her birthplace.

We were warned that we could have a dry run as it has happened last few days. But before we as much as shook our limbs and started our walk, the scouts let out a shout and were crowding around an area. The first nest was spotted. The methodology was to look out for the ridley's footpath; it resembled very closely that of the truck tyre marks starting from the sea.Another path going back into the sea was also noticed. The exact spot where it would have dug a deep hole about 18 inches to 2 feet to lay her eggs, needs to be devined by use of special sticks. They keep tapping the place and zoom in on the exact spot. Then the digging starts and we found 141 eggs from that nest. The methodical and scientific group that they are, they duly counted the number of eggs, carefully put them in a bag, measured the nest and also the distance from the sea and managed to close the nest and also the path.Photos were taken and the journalist batch managed to note down all details in their notebooks(very clever, they can see and work well in the night). Pops was excitement personified and she was right there were the action was.

The eggs were white in colour and exactly the size of ping pong balls. The scouts told us in hushed tones that the eggs appear freshly laid, perhaps less than an hour ago.

The scene kept repeating 4 more times during our walk and we had a good harvest of eggs, 141, 141, 152, 128 and the last nest was spotted on besant nagar beach, just before we called it a day(night actually).The scouts carried the harvest to a hatchery and after 40, 45 days when they hatch they will be brought back to the sea.The size of the baby turtles will be that of a forefinger. They have been programmed to go towards light. But due to bright light on the coasts, they walk towards land and hence get killed .The scouts stand in the water with torch lights and coax the baby turtles to come to the sea. And once they are let into the sea, they are back to nature and they have as much chance of survival as god and nature planned for them.

I am a sure candidate for the 'back to sea' adventure a few weeks from now!

Came home by 4 pm the richer for a unique experience and hit the bed , of course after depositing the entire collection of beach sand from neelangarai to besant nagar on the porch!