Lycian bees and loggerhead turtles

April 25, 2014

Today we visited Iztuzu Beach. Travelling from Dalyan we pulled over for the view and found bee hives all over the mountain. At one spot beekeepers were removing the honey in full protective gear; hollyhocks were growing wild all over the rocks, and the mountains were so thick with rocks it looked as though another civilisation might once have taken root here: but no, this is still the old Lycian kingdom.

Iztuzu beach is the home of loggerhead turtles. In the seventies an English woman, June Haimoff, living in a hut on the beach, began a campaign to protect the turtles at Iztuzu from developers. At this time of the year the turtles are out in the shallow waters, close by, breeding. Come May they will come ashore and lay their eggs, sometimes as many as a 100, in a shallow depression in the sand and in 60 days the little ones will hatch, and head straight for the water. Last year there were 500 nests along this beach.

In the seventies when 'Kapatan June' became outraged, developers had begun laying the foundations for a luxury hotel just metres from the loggerheads nesting ground. She quickly enlisted help from all over the world from her beach shack: David Bellamy included, and in the end, the hotel was forbidden, and the entire area has now been declared protected: a sanctuary for the loggerheads at nesting time. Thanks to June, who a year or so ago was invited to Buckingham Palace and honoured with an MBE.

The only building there, today, apart form the original beach shack used by 'Kapatan June' which is set up as a foundation information centre, is a Research and Rehabilitation Centre for turtles. Here, we found several loggerheads recuperating. Neshilhan, we fell in love with. She is between 60 and 65. Loggerheads only procreate once they reach the age of 30. Neshilan has been in hospital here for 13 months; she came from the waters around Ismir. She had a great gashing tear on the right side of her head where she had been badly snagged by a fisherman but her wound is getting better. She was being washed when we visited, fresh water was being piped into her tank, and lots of soft glove attention. Quite literally. The workers were all gloved up to protect her from any infection. When she is completely well she will be tested in the dive tanks and once she can dive to 4 metres and surface easily she will be tagged, then released back into the sea, and her movements tracked by computer for the next 12 months.

From here she will likely swim to some part of the north African coast for the winter. And, hopefully, she will avoid ingesting any plastic bags in the surrounding waters. Turtles can't distinguish these from jellyfish and plastic bags cause terrible problems for them. Another hassle the foundation is trying to cope with. At the moment their big focus is a concerted campaign to get boat propellors protected so that they are less exposed, minimising the danger they pose to unsuspecting turtles like Neshilan.

Iztuzu Beach is a long stretch of a sandbar that has built up since Lycian times between the marshy shallows and the sea. The sand is soft and golden and it stretches for some 5 kilometres around the bay. For the last three years Iztuzu has been name the Best Beach Destination in Europe, and it is not hard to see why.

Driving back we called in for lunch at one of the little cabanas that has been built on tall wooden stilts jutting out from the side of the very narrow road down to the beach. There are several of these little summer food stalls set up along the road and open from March to October. Ours was decked out in kilims and pretty cushions and owned and run by a local who used all her own produce to make our lunch, so it took a good hour to prepare and serve.

oooOOOooo