Flipping magic: on the turtle trail in Barbados

Twilight. We’re having dinner, and staring into the sea when the black shadow of a stingray passes through the water in front of the hotel where we’re eating. There’s something sinister about the stingray’s passage: like watching the cape of Count Dracula. Several people get up from their tables to peer at it.

Then we go back to our food – and that’s when I get the text. This informs us that turtle hatchlings are about to be released, just down the coast. We tell the waiter, who kindly allows us to split our dinner. (Perhaps the hotel, Cobblers Cove, with a turtle-nesting site of its own, is accustomed to this kind of eccentricity.) Determined to come back soon for pudding, we finish our main course and dash off.

Some time later, we’re stumbling in darkness on a stretch of deserted sand. It’s our last night on the island, and we’ve been waiting for this moment since we arrived.

Let’s go back a bit … to the evening we met Carla Daniel. The director of public awareness and education at the Barbados Sea Turtle Project (BSTP) is on a bench beside KFC at the edge of Bridgetown, preparing us for a night-walk.



Source: theguardian

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