Video: Green Turtle Moon

Turtle nesting & hatchling release at Cherating Turtle Sanctuary

I expected that our moonlight trip to see the turtles would be interesting, cute, fun - a good way to pass a night in sleepy Cherating.

I was therefore unprepared for the deeply moving experience it turned out to be. The lump in my throat and the rush of feeling arrived without warning when they came. I didn't realise until it was half over that it would be an unforgettable night...

Clambering over the rocks by torchlight, single file, I felt exhilarated by the challenge, salt spray and darkness, but there was no sense of awe, even though I knew I would be witnessing one of nature's most ancient and poignant rites.

Not even when the call rose over the darkened beach to hurry, that the turtle was laying, or when I stood in the general huddle around her at first, seeing her great shell heaving in the glare of rapid flash (despite the warning not to use flash photography and to turn torches off) did I feel more than curiosity.

After a few minutes of scrabbling and shell touching and egg handling though, the crowds with their short attention spans were already bored and moved away to talk amongst themselves. Then, when I knelt in the sand far enough away that I could watch the turtle by the light of the moon (and Doug could video her quietly in infrared without disturbing her) I started to feel what a momentous thing was occurring.

Sweet mama turtle wasn't just making a pit stop on the sands north of Cherating. She was engaged in a struggle of breathtaking endurance. At the beach of her birth, just as her unbroken line of maternal ancestors have done since the (relatively) early times of life on our planet, she had heaved her great bulk onto the shore and was using every ounce of muscle in her flippers to scrape sand over her babies to be, maybe the millionth generation of green turtles. I watched tears flow from her eyes as she committed her task in obvious pain and near to the limits of her strength and I nearly cried too – she was so brave.

We participated in the release of the babies too and wow – it's hard to describe how that felt. When the tiny newborns were struggling so hard to get out there – to begin life – with immense energy and fervor and enthusiasm and no looking back. It took about 5 seconds to fall in love with them, and when they disappeared into the black sea I already wanted to dive in after them and ensure they would make it, that they would get their chance, to protect them from all the things that could harm them in the depths.

It was such a beautiful night. Walking back under a full silver moon I felt enriched by what I had seen, as if there was a little more magic in the world than there was before.

I was utterly delighted of course, to see the video Doug made, and I've watched it countless times since :)