24/04/2021
" We all Live Once and Leave Once forever", breaking the stereotypes my Late GrandgrandMother has left this beautiful world twice🤔🤔 Officialy expired in mid 90's, She is back in 2015 to get me granted weekful of work place leaves 😎😂,without her,I wouldn't have been part of this Ft.Oliveridley Rescue operation 😁 to share with..
Let's jumpin to the experience in detail :
Post zeroing to lend our helping hands for the endangered OLIVE RIDLEY turtles, journey started to mass nesting centres at Garhimatha and Rishikulya beach, Odisha,India.
From the Silicon City to City of Destiny - Vizag, the journey felt too long with thousands of thoughts and excitement spilling out, only to land at Vizag after 16 hour long journey. Paying all the rituals of freshup, made some quick time for beach sports and salt water touche at the adorable Rushikonda Beach(Blue Flag category).
With absolute short of time to catch the train,hard bargained(to save those 15 bucks from my hardearned 4 digit peanut salary wallet😂) hired a three wheeler only to manage to get in to coach S10 of Prashanti Express ontime...
Post sunset,exited from the Berhampur station to hog some mouth watering local delicacies in and around the station area. Walked into some random travels,with no grip on Odiya, only sign language and managed to hire a taxi to Rishikulya estuary point.
Landed at the beach,with zero lightings around(for an obvious reason,all villages have to experience the zero light tolerance for 60 days) left with no network and hardly any knowns next to me, waited for the concerned dept. official to pick up after 2 hours...The protocol is nothing less than the scenes of kashmir with protection forces deployed on either side of country roads and crossing through the absolute pitch dark villages, reached the camp site tents for overnight stay..
As the night passed to make a change in the calander, enjoyed the strange experience with movement in the sand right below our sleeping bags... Astonished to see baby turtles cracking the hard egg shells to make way breaking through the loads of sand.. Helped the officials to move the tents to next safe zone and moved on to cyclone rehabilitation centre for night stay..
Olive Ridley turtles are endangered species and travel thousands of kms to shores of Odisha,Andhra Pradesh,Tamilnadu to make mass nesting process.. With just 100m to 150 m from the ocean,mother turtles make way to dig pits of sized atleast 2ft - 4 ft. to lay 150-200 eggs on average.. After 45 - 60 days of time frame for hatching process to getover,these mlther turtles travel back to their origins leaving behind the new borns to self-help to get in to the world.
Exiting the rehabilitation centre way ahead of sun rise,we quickly deployed into dedicated slots for job of protecting the baby turtles from the potential list of predators say Foxes,Dogs, Crows,SeaGulls and more..Safely pickedup thousands of turtles and left them few metres away the ocean..This is a continuous day n night process,with nights being more tricky for turtles, due to the light pollution from shore villages,which attracts them to travel in opposite direction to the ocean..Hence the villages are forced to cutoff the power for atleast 60-120 days during nesting seasons.
Turned out to be Lifetime experience,watching them happily joining into the ocean and wishing them to meet their family, placed close to shores of Srilanka,We started our journey visiting the famous shrine Puri Jagannath temple, Konark Sun temple,Chilka Lake n returned to home sweet home..
Regards,
Admin - All We Do is Travel