It took a dump on me

by Rob West 17. January 2010 03:38
Off Gili Menos, a tiny, 1 km wide island, ringed by a coral reef and white sand beaches off the NW coast of Lombok, we plunged in from the outrigger with snorkels on.

Gliding 8 or 10 metres above the reef – the closest thing to flying except for this being water and probably nothing like flying – there it was at the edge where the reef plummeted away. A sea turtle. Graceful, green, reticulated, with flipper wings, turning slowly and fading towards the relentless blue of the deep off the reef. A few hard kicks with the fins and its back was only a body length from me – one more kick and it’d be able to touch it. And then it took a shit on me.

Lurid green, perfectly formed like a dog turd, slowly tumbling towards me like a depth charge off the stern of a WWII Corvette. A few slow motion underwater evasive manoeuvres and I was clear, the turd tumbling off below. But it was too late. The sea turtle was gone, fins flapping as it ghosted into the blue pixellated haze of the deep.

Rob West is Earthscan's former Senior Commissioning Editor, currently on a round-the-world trip.  This article has been syndicated from Rob’s blog Flaneur: A slow wander round the world

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