Thé turtles of Mirissa, Sri Lanka-by Mila

Today was the day, the day I could do something that I had never ever done before, swim with turtles!!!

We arrived on the beach called turtle bay at around eleven o clock. It was in the small town of Mirrisa on the island of Sri Lanka. It had  sparkling bright water, and I was eager to swim as soon as I could. But of course the people that owned the program weren’t there. We sat on our seat confused and watching crabs for a while, and soon enough Mum said we were aloud to go to the beach, and I felt as if my whole body was celebrating. All I had to do to get down a little jump, no big deal. Hazel let me go first and I jumped down quickly, I encouraged her that it was ok to go down. She jumped down easily too, but Ruby seemed to stay put happily up by her perch on her seat. But she came down eventually, and ended up playing in the water with us. Mum and Dad went up the short walk to take photos and when they came back the programs workers were there. We went over to check it out, they gave us the smallest snorkel gear that they had and soon Mum asked them for life jackets. They paused and said ‘no life jackets’ and that’s how me and Dad ended up walking along the beach to find a new place to swim with turtles.

Luckily the new place had life jackets, but only I wanted a life jackets so really there was no point changing places.  There was a boat to go in, it was thin at the top and got bigger at the bottom. Only me and Ruby and Hazel went on the boat, mum and Dad just walked, and BOY they missed out!!!! There was the BIGGEST school of fish I have ever seen in my entire life! It was maybe even bigger that my house at home. Soon we got to the area where we would snorkel with the turtles.

The water was crowded with people.

But I couldn’t blame them, turtles are cute and adorable, and nobody can certainly deny it. After a while our tour guide beckoned us to come over. Once we found our way over I felt like gasping, but of course I couldn’t, we were under water. But the turtle was amazing, I couldn’t believe my eyes! Maybe my eyes were even glowing! I suspected that it was the green turtle, which is the endangered one. So I am quite happy to say that all of the turtles we saw were green turtles.

After a bit of swimming around and following the crowd trying to find the turtle hidden between them, our guide and the rest of my family told me to come over. But my head was under the water so I didn’t quite know where I was going, so I ended up swimming into the open waves the COMPLETELY opposite way to my family and the guide. But to my luck I saw something I didn’t expect to see.

A flash of green caught my eye as I was about to turn around, but I immediately turned back to see the smallest cutest turtle ever. It swam around in lots of different ways turning and going up and down and everywhere! It was soooo cute. I had to turn around and tell my family it was there, so I did, trying to yell at them that it was there. But the crashing waves blocked all the sound. So I turned back around to see it myself… but it was gone, as if was never there in the first place.

So I went back to the shore to see Ruby and Hazel playing on the sand. I came over to join them and straight away we had to go back on the boat, finishing our wonderful adventure with turtles. I knew this was an once and a lifetime opportunity that I would never ever forget.