BABY TURTLES..... OUR ABORTIVE HUNT

SETTING OFF TO FIND THOSE BABY TURTLES

One of our colleagues arranged an overnight visit to a private beach about 20 km from Luanda to see baby sea turtles hatching and dashing for the sea and safety. He had been there while the mother turtles had come up out of the sea to lay their eggs, and reasonably enough, wanted to see the second installment of this story. This beach is a private one, belonging to one of the numerous Angolan Army Generals (they seem to own so many things, these Generals...Shops, housing estates, banks...You name it, one of them will own it...).

So, Roger, for it was he who had this plan duly arranged everything, and asked us all to join him there. The idea being to head on out to the beach after school on Friday afternoon in a couple of the school's busses, to camp on the beach and see what we might see.

Off we went, in high spirits, with enough beer in "Eskies" (cooler boxes) to float a battle ship and the makings of an impressive BBQ, or Braai as it is known in Africa.

After an uneventful drive along the coast, we arrived at the sandy track to the beach, and bumped slowly down this in our busses. All went well for the first km or so... Then one of the busses got stuck in the soft sand.... Happily the chief of our security was with us too, in his 4x4, so he towed the bus out of the sand, and with no further problems we arrived at the beach.

STUCK BUS BEING SAVED

In spite of how it looks in the photos, it was not a cold day, very hot in fact, simply overcast.

SAFELY ARRIVED

We set to with a will, those with tents setting them up, those, like Lotty and I, who had decided to simply bring sleeping bags, set our sleeping bags out where ever we wanted them to be. And then we all fell on the freezer boxes and started to um.... sample the beer. This is more or less all that happened for the next couple of hours, all of us sitting or standing around, chatting and supping on our cold beers. All very pleasant and relaxed...

LOTTY LOOKING PENSIVE

TEACHERS AT REST

While the majority of us were thus happily engaged, a couple of noble souls were busy getting the BBQ going.

Not much really happened.

One brave fellow went surfing, which is what he lives for, so if there is a wave more than about 20 cms high, he is awaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.

RICKY ABOUT TO SHOOT THE WAVES

Lotty also went in for a brief swim, and reported that the sea was warm... it looked cold and uninviting to me, so I stayed firmly dry.

This was more or less all that happened until supper was declared ready by the cooks... So we all wandered away from the beach to a small tent which had the BBQ set up just outside it...and ate..and ate, and ate.. oh, and drank too.

SORT OF SPEAKS FOR ITSELF

Apparently we could expect no real action from the baby turtles until after midnight, so we happily passed the evening away in talk, eating, and drinking...oh, and admiring the rather splendid sunset.

YET ANOTHER ATLANTIC SUNSET FOR YOU ALL

The only thing of any note which occurred in all this time was the arrival of a very friendly dog, who appeared to belong to the owner of the beach. This pooch sort of wandered around for a while.. and then disappeared. As you can see, it was excitement all the way!!!!!

ANGOLAN POOCH

After several hours of this, I wandered off to my sleeping bag on the beach, and settled down on it to enjoy the sky and the wonderful sound of the breakers about 20 meters from me... and happily lay there in the pitch dark (no moon) until Lotty joined me. We then snuggled into our sleeping bags and began drifting off to sleep.

About midnight, a number of the others went off with torches to see if they could find any baby turtles.... We remained snug in our bags, in the sure knowledge that should they find anything, we would hear about it, and could then join them. But all we heard was the noise of them disappearing into the distance along the beach...

So, we drifted into sleep.

It was a very pleasant night's sleep in the fresh air there.

When we awoke in the morning, and asked if any one had seen any baby turtles we were told that not a one had been seen.... So we had missed nothing by sleeping... Happily!

However..... whilst no baby turtles had appeared, one of us had a visitation from a rat in her tent during the night, which she was not exactly overjoyed about, and the sand was covered in jackal paw-prints in the morning. They had wandered all over the place, including about 50 cms from where Lotty and my heads had been. Luckily, it seems that jackals are not aggressive beasts, merely hungry, so no harm done.

EARLY MORNING WALK. POST MARKS TURTLE NEST

It only remained to get the BBQ going again, and to cook and consume a massive "English" breakfast and then go and find our busses... Which hadn't dared to drive all the way to the beach this time.

THE WALK BACK

A long hot walk later, we located the bus, piled into it and returned to the school...All of us completely disoriented by this marvelous small break from our normal routines.

And that was our...abortive attempt to see some nature in Angola... Perhaps we shall go again, and this time see more than the lids of cans of beer, who knows?