TURTLE ISLAND IN FETHIYE BAY,

 June 13, 2016

Part of our excursion to Dalyan, (see post below) was the stop at the "Turtle Island"

Turtle Beach, is surrounded by salt water on one side and fresh water on the other. It is one of the last breeding grounds of the Sea Turtles and therefore delightfully undeveloped.

Normally Turtle Beach can be visited, but from 1 May - 31 October the beach is inaccessible to the public between 20.00 and 08:00, because of noise and light disturbance. It is protected and surveyed by volunteers.

These measures have proven to be successful, despite the enormous increase of tourism. The monitoring programme carried out from 1988 onwards, shows a stable population and even a slight increase of nests on the beach.



But we had the opportunity to see these enormous turtles called Caretta caretta in the water. The caretaker threw crabs into the water and they came up to fetch them.

You can read more about them here





They were very quick and it was difficult to take pictures !



Here they are playing in the water








Some of them are so big as an arm chair and weights over 80 kgs !

It was a very interesting part of our excursion

I found this video on YouTube, which shows you that even turtles are playful and intelligent !