The Mystery Of The Ancient Mariner

A Sabah-based photographer has spent the last decade and more documenting the mysterious leatherback turtle’s visits to the remote Kai Archipelago.

- Jason Isley

THE LEATHERBACK SEA TURTLE (Dermochelys coriacea) is the largest living turtle, so named for its lack of a hard carapace. Despite its size, there is much about the life and epic wanderings of this gentle giant across the planet’s oceans that remains a mystery.

In 2007, I travelled to the Kai Archipelago, a remote group of Indonesian islands east of Ambon, where Western Pacific leatherbacks are known to forage. Though there is just a single, global species of the turtle, there are genetically and demographically distinct subspecies in several oceans, with the Pacific home to both western and eastern populations.

All leatherbacks seem to make enormously long voyages, the purpose of which is not well understood. The western Pacific population, for instance, has been found feeding along the western coast of North America on occasion.

Over the last decade and more, I have returned again and again to document their behaviour, as well as that of the other pelagic species drawn to the surrounding waters and also the traditional hunting still practised there. As far as I am aware, it’s the only place in the world where you can guarantee underwater encounters with leatherbacks.