Michael Roberts
The Thuppahi item on the turtle nursey at Rekawa along the southern coast of Sri Lanka …… https://thuppahis.com/2024/10/24/the-turtle-nursery-at-rekawa-in-southern-sri-lanka/#more-85722 …… has revived two inspiring ‘moments’ when I had ‘brushes’ with a turtle. Both indelible experiences which are etched in my mind’s pictorial eye took place at the Unawatuna beach about four miles east of Galle town – a popular tourist beach on the other side of the Buona Vista peninsula that constitutes the eastern ‘front’ of Galle harbour.
The beach is concave in shape and protected at its eastern end – in the calm season – by a reef running east/west. There is a Buddhist shrine & temple at this western end and the concave-shaped shoreline is dominated by numerous restaurants and lodgings servicing the tourist trade. In our active teenage days in the 1950s this lovely spot was a spot to which I resorted via bike with compatriots during the holiday season or weekends.
On one occasion much later on in adult life [I cannot recall precisely when] I had taken off from the eastern end and was swimming underwater viewing the fish and corals when …. WHEN …. a turtle loomed alongside on my left and left me standing — so to speak – as it moved elegantly at speed past me.
THAT was a striking moment that is still imprinted in my memory bank. WHAT a privilege.
EPISODE TWO
This was a more public event and occurred on the beach. It was probably in the early 2000s when my sister Audrey was visiting the island from UK. It was probably around the Christmas season. Audrey and I would have been staying with our elder sister Estelle Fernando at Hampden Lane in Wellawatte. One of the Mediwake family — a child of Palitha and Nadine Mediwake of Kundasale in Kandy – had a house in Manning Place. Nadine joined Estelle and me in a trip down south where we booked into lodgings at Unawatuna.
One evening beyond dusk when we were gathered for dinner at one of the restaurants where several tables were ‘parked’ on the flattened and hardened sand, we were interrupted by the arrival of a mother turtle intent on laying its eggs. The good tourists and locals hurriedly moved themselves, tables and chairs aside …. leaving Mother Turtle the space and time to proceed with its birthing needs.
An INDELIBLE EXPERIENCE still etched in mind’s pictorial eye.
Unrestricted development has turned the once pristine Unawatuna into a grotty collection of beach huts that fight each other for every inch of sand.
Onna watuna, – is Arthur Clarke’s meteor strike theory
that gave the place its name. The location has a powerful magnetic field that is supposed to disorient satellites.
With little or no beach left to lay on, turtles have to brave the human presence to lay at their feet.
SIDELINE Move — Do you have REEFS OF TAPROBANE? I do ….somewhere in my lot.
Pingback: Alongside Turtles at Unawatuna Beach in Southern Lanka-by Michael Roberts
In the early 70s I grabbed and and hung on to a very large turtle, at least a metre in breadth, in front of the Mt Lavinia hotel.
Lucky it did NOT fart and evict you.