A turtle's tracks Credit: Jean-Marie de Bernardy de Sigoyer

Some time before the sun rose, we went to the tip of the island, where there was a long strip of sand.

We saw fresh tracks on the sand, as well as turtles crawling along exhausted by their night laying. They rowed with their forelegs, stopped for some time to recover, and then started again, massive and silent. Around them, tens of sandpipers were pecking seaweed left on the beach by the sea.

Turtle making efforts Credit: Jean-Marie de Bernardy de Sigoyer

Since the sun started to rise, the turtles were hurrying up to reach the protective sea. Those which were disoriented or too exhausted to reach the sea before the day rose, would die under the heat of the sun. We found several whitened shells on the beach, covered by a mound of coral blocks.

On dry land, the team was once again disappointed, one of the regular mounds we considered as “a gravestone”, didn’t reveal anything. We were puzzled because under the carefully placed coral blocks, we only found a beach rock aggregating coral blocks.
Can this agglomerated sand be formed over a hundred years ? We asked the question to a geologist of the INRAP (National Institute of Preventive Archaeological Research) through Internet…

Marking is still so difficult Credit: Jean-François Rebeyrotte

The divers continued their marking and measuring job in a rough sea, which made every single gesture very difficult. Reaching an object was quite easy, but holding onto it to measure something was very difficult because the swell and the backwash were so strong. However, everything was gradually getting arranged and a plan of the site was progressively drawn up.

We spent the afternoon preparing the inflatable dinghy for an intervention. We placed it on the seashore, ready to rescue the divers in case of a problem.