Turtle Hatchings at Kabalana Beach

People travel to faraway places to witness hatchings of turtle eggs, which at most places happen once or twice a year. In the Southern parts of Sri Lanka it happens once a month at every full moon between January and July.

The nearby hatchery in Galle buys turtle eggs from the local fishermen who would otherwise have sold them as food to the locals. The eggs are then buried half a meter under the sand and are left 48 days (for green turtles) or 54 days (for leatherbacks) until they will hatch two or three evenings around full moon.

The the beach where we are at, Kabalana, there are 800 eggs which will hatch in the next couple of days. It will be an interesting sight watching them all crawl away and into the big ocean.