Nightly Turtle Watch, Pulau Perhentian Besar
We spent much of our nights looking for turtles. Bubble’s Dive Centre has a volunteer program which consists mainly of students from the UK coming to the centre to watch for turtles arriving on the beach to lay eggs at night. When we arrived they were between groups so they were asking if guests would like to volunteer. On the first night we were there a massive Greenback turtle crawled up the beach at 9pm and, in the darkness began digging a hole to lay her eggs. We watched until 1am. Not even the poachers, who arrived in their boat and waited in the darkness across the beach from us could be bothered waiting. When they came back at 2am, she was still digging. They eventually gave up completely and left at 3am empty handed. When the government’s conservation people arrived at 8am, they discovered that she hadn’t laid a single egg. Apparently she dug four holes, laid nothing and left, exhausted, at 7am. That’s some phantom pregnancy.