Island stars

This morning’s talk for the volunteers was on marine pollution, focusing on plastic and its impact on sea turtles. Lang Tengah is a very small island. There are 3 small holiday resorts along the west coast and one abandoned resort with a few people living in it. While some of the litter on the beaches will have from the resorts, the vast majority of it washes up with the tide. (A shop mannequin washed up on one of the other beaches today.) It’s especially bad on the eastern side of the island after the monsoon. When the project team arrived back on the island to set up for the season, the first time they went over to the east of the island they found areas knee deep in rubbish.

In the afternoon everyone except me walked through the jungle to the other side of the island to pick up some of that litter and then later to snorkel all the way back to Turtle Bay. They advised me that the path was bad and the clean up involved climbing around on rocks which could aggravate my foot so I didn’t go. I went over the smaller hill to the nearest resort and used their wifi. When I got back I sat on the beach reading until they got back.


In the evening, despite the heat, we lit a campfire. The smoke helped to keep the mosquitoes away. I was on the 10pm and 1am Turtle Bay patrols and after the 10pm check of the beach I tried some shots of the stars. The greenish light is caused by the lights on the fishing boats out near the horizon.