Close contacts of the third kind

One of the most pleasant moments for my trip to Sri Lanka was the opportunity to swim with turtles. There were a lot of them. Different. Big and small. Not at all shy. And very close to the shore, so there was no need even to take the equipment. It was enough just to wear a mask. The only difficulty was the waves, which sometimes reached a couple of meters. So there were not very many comfortable conditions for shooting.



However, there was one place in the Hikkaduwa area, partially covered from the waves with rocks, resulting in a quiet bay. It was used by everyone as a beach and a place to enter the water.



During the day there was quite crowded. And visibility in the water, as well as in general in Sri Lanka, was not super. It rarely reached ten meters. Most often it was a couple of meters away with a bunch of sand in the water column. After every such swimming, the box had to be cleaned very carefully from this sand.
But it did not stop to have fun. So I often swam easily. Without a camera.



There are few places in the world where it's so easy to see a sea turtle in nature, since here. Yes, local people feed turtles algae, which are collected a few meters away. It's their business to pick up a pack of seaweed, feed the turtle off the beach, and sell a bunch of seaweed to tourists from nearby hotels for a few coins.



Interesting observation - many people notice very impressive turtles in size, only if they are poked into them with their noses. This is with the fact that there are many turtles and you can just run into one of them in the water. And at the same time nearby there can be two, three or even five turtles!



I tried to swim all over the water area. So you could see much more. First, there are several kinds of turtles. If you are lucky you can see as many as 5 species of sea turtles, some of them are very rare. The most common and common in the Sri Lanka region are the green turtles. They are in the set gather near the shore. Then come the bisces. They can be found a little further. A characteristic feature that formed the basis of the name (hawksbill), an acute and slightly curved nose, similar to a hawkish beak.



Then there are olive, legerbacks (leathery) and lagheads (bigheads). And all these turtles lay eggs on local beaches. That is, year after year the generation of turtles come here just to continue their kind. There are not many corals here, especially near the shore. By this, the turtles eat everything they can pick. For example, all the same algae. I always tried to swim until the sunset. At this time, most turtles sail from shore. But until it gets dark they can still be seen in the water. Then they go to bed.



It was also interesting to see how the turtles cope with the surf. For this, I swam into the places where the waves crashed against the ridges of the reefs. This in itself is very beautiful, although you have to be careful not to get yourself under the distribution yourself.



So it turned out that the turtles simply ignore it. They allow the wave to pick them up and slap on the stones. With their shell, this does not really bother them. Then the turtle, as if nothing had happened, continues to swim about its business.

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