Sri Lanka Holidays

Best Beaches of the World: Rekawa Beach, Sri Lanka

The beach at Rekawa village, 10km east of Tangalla Bay Beach, is home to one of the most important sea turtle nesting sites in Sri Lanka, visited by five different species which lay their eggs in the sand here every night throughout the year.

The best time to see turtles is between January & April; periods when there's a full moon. Fullish moon too are good throughout the year, because there are both more turtles & more light to see them by. Rekawa has recorded 23 turtles in one night. We will definitely see at least a couple of turtles every night.

We wait long hours in the pitch black beach. At last, one arrives in the midnight crawling across the beach, away from sea. It leaves, on its path, a remarkable trail which looks as if a one-wheeled tractor has driven straight up out to the sea. It's an agonizingly slow crawl of exhausting half an hour by a creature not adapted to the land. Having reached the top of the beach, the turtle then spend about another 45 minutes digging an enormous hole. Silence of the midnight is broken by periodic thrashing & sound of great clouds of sand being scuffed up. As the turtle begins to lay eggs, we can get close to watch, although all we could see is the turtle's backside with eggs-looking just like ping-pong balls-periodically popping out in twos & threes. The turtle then rests, fills in the hole & eventually crawls back down to the sea. It's an epic effort, the sight of which makes the whole evening-long experience worthwhile.

In the absence of government sponsored project, the turtle eggs are then taken to be re-buried in a secure location, by the villagers who make a basic living from entertaining tourists. These creatures have acted as a rare bridge between marine & terrestrial ecosystems for 100 million years, enriching both as they steadfastly undertake their remarkable two-realm life cycle. We refuse to buy eggs for consumption. We refuse to buy turtle products.