Solitude in the Sun

Get up close and personal with wildlife at Waldorf Astoria Platte Island in a far-flung part of Seychelles, where nesting spots of the endangered hawksbill and green turtles coexist with luxury villas.

- KENNETH SZ GOH

“Here’s a nesting spot,” beckons my turtle patrol guide, Dominique Dina, who gingerly leads me towards a dense canopy of shrubs, where the last batch of the hawksbill turtles have stealthily laid their eggs in late April, a stone’s throw away from the pristine beach. “Judging by the number of holes dug by crabs around the spot, we know that the eggs are about to hatch — crabs are very sensitive to movement in the ground,” shares Dina, who is also the environment manager at luxury resort Waldorf Astoria Platte Island.

I am on Platte Island, a tiny 1.3km long island 130km south of Mahe, the largest island of Seychelles, an African archipelago sprinkled in the middle of the Indian Ocean, with its closest neighbours being Madagascar and Kenya.

Platte (French for “flat”) Island is one of a handful of nesting sites for the endangered hawksbill and green turtles. Dina estimates that around 600 to 700 turtles come ashore during the nesting season.

With the resort coexisting with these precious nesting sites, turtle patrol is one of the more popular activities for guests. During the peak nesting season, hawksbill turtles emerge from the sea to dig sand chambers along the beach and lay their eggs, which can number up to 200 each time.

If the stars are aligned, guests can be whisked away to witness the hatchlings emerge from their nest they stick their heads out and dizzily crawl towards the sea.

During a morning walk around the coconut tree-fringed island, Dina shares that these hatchlings have a one in a thousand chance of surviving the short but precarious journey to the sea.

The path is fraught with predators, such as crabs (there are plenty of ghosts and brown crabs scurrying around the island) and cats. Rising sea levels are eroding coastlines and making nesting options more scarce.