Thursday 2nd November

Another interesting breakfast, found a square of banana cake made with pandan. Sticky and sweet, and green, it was quite tasty. Checked out of the hotel, but asked them to keep our luggage as while we were staying elsewhere tonight we would be returning tomorrow and staying one more night. Not at all complicated. Thankfully the reception staff weren’t fazed and took our big rucksacks.

Armed with day bags and gear for a one night sleepover we waited for our drivers to arrive to take us to Sukamade Beach. Tonight we are hoping to see green turtles! Rian rocks up to the hotel lobby, ah excellent, I didn’t realise we had booked this trip with the same crowd as Ijen.

Leaving Ketapang, we drove for about two hours on nice asphalt roads. Stopped off at a small side of the road “restaurant” for lunch, called Warung Mulyo. The food choices looked terrifying and none too appealing to (fussy) me; however I didn’t dare insult the lovely older lady who was so proud of her array of choices and looked on so enthusiastically as to what I wanted. Okay, first things first, let’s identify all these bad boys. Ahmm...

“What’s this?”

“Jackfruit.”  (largest tree-borne fruit in the world, species of tree in the fig, mulberry, breadfruit family)

“This?”

“Catfish.”  (bottom-feeder!)

“This?” 

“Chicken liver and intestines.”  (awful offal!)

“This?” 

“Squid.”  (rubber!)

“This?”

“Tofu, very spicy.” (spicy rubber!)

 “This?”

“Chicken with boiled eggs.” (might be a goer!)

“Spicy?”

“A little bit.”  (maybe not...)

Hmmm, top row looks to be meat free, might be a bit safer. I can identify corn fritters, nice, okay, I’ll definitely have some of that. Rice. Yes please! Load me up. I’ll also grab a boiled egg. Some of the slightly spicy chicken. And heck, let’s attempt the jackfruit too. My entire plate, plus a bottle of coke, cost me €1.50.   

Leaving the restaurant we passed by a truck that was making and selling dumplings. We pulled it over and all hopped out to grab a treat. I opted for the chocolate one, and can report, that it was super sweet and very tasty.

We lost the lovely tarred roads, and hit the muddy trails that would be our terrain for the next two hours. Our drivers were very good and crawled over the bumpy, muddy, boulder filled mountainous trails. Banbang, my driver was sitting upright hunched over the wheel with both hands firmly affixed to it for the entire journey. It required a lot of concentration. Despite the infinite care, we were still shaken about a bit; not that that bothered me in the slightest. Baby turtles would be the reward. I was happy out.

Rian had asked if we wanted to break up the trip by stopping at a nice beach called Green Bay before reaching our accommodation. Sure, that sounded perfect. Our 4x4’s pulled into a cove and we all hopped aboard a local fisherman’s boat and headed out to sea. It was only when Rian offered to take my mobile phone and put it in a waterproof bag, before donning a poncho that it clicked we might get wet, very wet!!! Sitting at the front might not have been so smart. Although being at the front meant I couldn’t actually see how far we lurched outta da water with each oncoming wave, having no point of reference ahead of me. Tony, who sat at the back of the boat said it was a very high swell. Fisherman had a lobster and a pufferfish in the hull of the boat, he offered to sell it to us for dinner. We declined his offer as we weren’t sure if our accommodation would be best pleased with us rocking up with our own food, going, “here, clean and cook this for us”.

Very smooth beach landing into Green Bay. There were two girls waiting to catch the boat back, and once they left we had the place to ourselves to wander. Beach was a lovely soft white sand. Sea was a bit rough so none of us opted to go swimming. Watched some grey monkeys in trees then trekked through the forest to another beach called Stone Shore, as the name suggests there was no sand and it was comprised entirely of stones. Looking down the ground was literally crawling. Tiny hermit crabs were all over the place, scurrying here and there. Fascinating. However my allure to stay and watch them was short-lived. I heard the terrifying buzz that instils terror into my heart. Mosquitos!!! Slap, slap, slap. They were everywhere. And me with no bug juice as it was back with the 4x4’s. Feck!!! Cue some fast walking through the 1km forest path trying to get to the end of the trail before being munched to pieces. Slap! Satisfyingly I managed to get that bugger, although the amount of blood residue on my palm suggested he had been gorging himself for ages before I spotted him. Grrrr!

Made it back to the vehicles and continued our drive to Sukamade. The sun was beginning to set as we came into a clearing. Folks! It was so lush and prehistoric looking I actually would not have been in the slightest bit surprised if a herd of brontosauruses lopped gently into view. It was like a scene from Jurassic Park (minus the dinosaurs, sadly). Absolutely stunning. God I’m loving Indonesia. It is just a beautiful part of the world.

We arrived at our accommodation as darkness fell. The guest house is about a 20 minute drive from the beach. Research mentioned that the accommodation at the conservation centre while at the beach, was very basic, you’d be sleeping on a mattress on the floor, sharing bathroom facilities and the cleanliness of the sleeping area seemed highly questionable (too many reviews mentioned bed bugs). Plus the area was filled with mosquitoes. Ah yes, staying 20 minutes away in a slightly better quality accommodation was fine by me.

Our host provided us with a delicious dinner spread of a tasty vegetable broth with pasta, mie-gorang, corn fritters, chicken legs, rice, cooked vegetables and fresh fruit. Finger licking good. My room was clean and I had four single beds to choose from. We were provided with a towel and a woollen type blanket for the bed. Geoff and Jenny swapped rooms with Robin as their bathroom was missing a toilet seat, and he kindly offered to change since his was intact. The swap meant that his new bed was decked out in Strawberry Shortcake covers. I had to investigate on hearing. Talk about a childhood throwback. Funny stuff.

At 8pm we left to go to the conservation centre. There we met a ranger called Eko. He talked us through what they did at the centre and explained how the night would go. So every night of the year turtles appear on the beach to lay eggs. The rangers take some of the eggs and incubate them in their hatchery to protect them from predators and give them a greater fighting chance at survival.

Eko would bring us to the beach, we could use flashlights for the 800m to get there, however, once the beach was in sight we had to turn off all lights and make sure all camera equipment had flash and screens disabled. We also were to keep quiet and not make any loud noises, turning off sound on mobiles. Turtles are very sensitive to light and sound and encountering either might disrupt their activity, making them choose not to lay their eggs that night. If we found a nesting turtle we were to keep out of her eyeline, only approaching from the behind or sides, nowhere near her head. Our group just consisted of the six of us, Rian and one other couple (who were in their twenties I reckon).

Once we reached the beach Eko told us to hang tight as he checked out the beach to find a laying turtle.  We sat on the sand and waited. The couple sat away from us and were laughing and joking and using their mobile phones, taking selfies with lights. Oh dear! Rian popped over to them and reminded them of the no-light rule.

Luckily it was a full moon and the sky was clear. It was incredibly bright. The stars were out, but the brightness of the moon meant there would be no chance to see amazing stars. Not that I was complaining, a bright moonlit beach meant we could see so much more, if there was going to be anything to see. We quietly joked that wouldn’t it be funny if as Eko went off up the beach a turtle came out instead where we were waiting. And yup, you guessed it, that’s exactly what happened.

Tony was the first to point to a black shadow in the surf. Was it a stone? Had it been there before? Wait, is it moving? Cue lots of strained eyes all trying to figure out if we were looking at a turtle emerging from the sea. And we were! Rian ran off up the beach to grab Eko. We all stood up and watched the lumbering black figure slowly advance towards us bit by bit.

Eko and Rian came back, and Eko informed us that chances were that that turtle was merely scouting, trying to find and decide on the best place to lay her eggs. He didn’t reckon she was coming in to nest. He had however been on the walkie-talkie with other rangers on the beach and they had come across a large green turtle who was making her nest, about 1km up the beach. So off we went. As we made our way up the beach we came across three other turtles emerging from the waters. Incredible!

Green turtles must leave the water and crawl up onto the beach to lay their eggs. On finding a suitable spot the female begins nesting which involves digging a deep hole using her strong flippers to flick away the sand. She lays her eggs in the hole and then covers it over again to keep them warm and protected from predators. Once fully covered and satisfied with her work she returns to the sea, not going back again. Motherhood is not part of these creatures behaviour.

By the time we got to the turtle she had just finished digging her nest. Firstly, she was huge! So much bigger than I expected. Eko shone a light on her rear so that we could see her laying her eggs. It was a fairly magical sight to watch her spew all the eggs out into the sand. She did so in bursts. And as she laid them, Eko sneakily swiped them out from under her. 128 eggs was what she laid! Incredible. What a sight to witness.

 My only grumble was that the unknown female was a selfie addict. For most of the laying, she had her mobile on a selfie-stick and was doing silly poses that you couldn’t help but being distracted by. Sure, take a picture or two, but then stop, and just witness!! With your own eyes, not through a lens! It grated on every single one of our nerves. She also had to get so close to the turtle. She was practically in the hole at one point. Again Rian had to step in and point out how perilously close she was to falling on top of the turtle, sand gives way very easily. That was my one misgiving. I wish the ranger had been stronger and told her to cop on. That being said he was busy fishing out all the eggs.

Once she finished laying them, the turtle began her arduous task of covering the hole to protect her eggs (which were no longer there!). It just seemed like such a futile effort. The poor thing was exhausted from the ordeal of depositing all the eggs and now she was going to spend over two hours covering an empty hole.

 Eko picked up one of the eggs and let me hold it in my palm. See how fragile the shell is he said. The egg was about the size of a large golf-ball but felt very light. I very gently tipped the shell with my fingertip, and was astonished to see how it popped a wee dent into the shell. You could sense the fluid on the other side of the egg. It was soft-shelled and felt paper-thin; for some reason I’d imagined it would be hard like that of a hen’s egg. Despite the softness of the egg, it can take the baby anything from 1-4 days to hatch out of the shell. Once we all had a chance to hold the egg it was returned to the batch, wrapped up and taken back to the hatchery.

For the next two hours we sat and gazed, watching the female turtle use her strong front flippers to shovel large amounts of sand behind her, filling the hole she had created, protecting her (stolen) eggs. It was spell-binding to watch. So, so magical!!

Granted that spell was broken every so often by the young girl who continued to frustrate us all. At one point she pulled out a sarong and sat directly in front of the turtle. We all tutted but Eko was chatting to the other guides and said nothing. However the turtle stopped filling the hole and remained motionless for a long time, obviously sensing a potential threat.  After quite the standoff Eko did approach the girl and get her to move to the side. While she did, she was still far too close to the turtle’s head by my reckoning. Such blatant disregard just really irked us all.

At 11pm Eko told us that we would have to go soon as they are not allowed to keep people on the beach past midnight. We all wanted to stay and watch the turtle return to the ocean, but we had more than our fair share of viewing time, so begrudgedly we started making our way back down the beach. Eko told us that ten turtles had been spotted tonight. Four of them laying eggs and six scouting.  I was surprised to spot two other turtles a couple of hundred metres apart, well hidden in the sand, but you’d just catch a flick of flying sand and the odd flipper peaking out. Amazing!! This definitely is up there with my most incredible experiences.

Earlier in the week Lu had been trying to recollect a song she knew (The Hole in the Ground by Bernard Cribbins); this was the most apt place ever to sing it softly. She only knew a few lines; but so did we because she recalled it so much in recent days, Hehehe! “There I was, a-diggin’ this ‘ole, ‘ole in the ground, so big and sort o’ round it was, and there was I, diggin’ it deep, it was flat at the bottom and the sides were steep”.  We’re bonkers and giddy, but it’s the earworm for tonight!

The rain began to fall as we made our way back to the 4x4’s. Luckily it was a just a light downpour. We got back to the guest house just before midnight only to discover there was no electricity. Ah yes, I remember someone mentioning that earlier today. I did pack a small LED lantern, where did I put it though. It would have been smart to have set that aside somewhere accessible before heading out this evening. But then I’d have to claim to be smart for that logical action...