By Will Faithfull (guest at Misool Eco Resort)

Few people in the world got to start 2009 with the kind of experience we were treated to at MER.

On the evening of 1 January, we gathered in the beachside restaurant to savour a well-earned meal while we swapped stories of the day’s diving and admired the glittering night sky. So far, this was standard fare for MER (save for the addition of a few pained expressions following the previous night’s festivities!).

However, one particularly distinguished visitor hadn’t pre-booked their accommodation.

Mid-meal, we were interrupted by excited whispers from another guest calling us to the beach. For sat there, not five metres from us on the sand, was an enormous green sea turtle!

This fine old lady (estimated at 60-80 years old) was heavily pregnant and had obviously come to the beach to assess its suitability as a site for giving birth. Now this particular survey was no mean feat given her size – a good 1.2 metres – and the handicap she bore of a missing hind-left flipper.

Due to these challenges, she was resting when we first saw her. But as we stood back, exchanging exclamations such as “this is just unbelievable”, and the very original and descriptive “oh my god”, she started to heave herself towards us again. And although we moved back to give her space, she was soon so close to us that I could hear her laboured breath as she stopped once again to rest.

photo by Martin Kraus

We switched off the restaurant lights and, probably against some of our inner wishes, resisted taking photos. In that darkness, she made her way along the stone path away from the beach. When she lifted herself up to the wooden deck of the restaurant, we began to discuss whether we would have to lift her back towards the water. However, much to our relief she opted against taking the metre-high plunge onto the beach and instead returned the way she’d come.

Once back on beach, to our glee she began digging into the sand with her flippers. She was going to lay her eggs! After a few minutes, however, she decided it wasn’t the right location after all. It may simply have been that the sand was too warm or too wet (I learnt that turtles are very choosy about where they lay their eggs), or perhaps it was our presence nearby.

Because for all the educational and environmental good that MER unarguably is doing, it is a fact of life that it’s impossible to construct any building without some impact on the surrounding environment. But in this case we can console ourselves with the knowledge that MER’s net impact is clearly very positive for Raja Ampat and its inhabitants, both now and increasingly in the future as life in the No Take Zone flourishes.

On this occasion, then, this turtle would have to go elsewhere to nest. So the resolute old lady duly made her way down the beach and back into the ocean. But not before she’d given us all a New Year’s Day to remember.