On the 1st September 2012, for the first and ever, a huge Hawksbill Turtle came to Pom Pom beach during day time to lay eggs. She laid 163 eggs.

Just in the end of our resort

It started when one of our guests Isabelle came to see me and inform that there is a huge turtle coming up and lay eggs in the end of our resort (Beach Villa 16). And I question her, “Turtle came and laid eggs??” and she said yes. I ask her few times before I rush to the scene. Yes, when I arrived at the scene I saw Huge Hawksbill Turtle laying eggs. I contact me team to come over.

Unbelievable, never in Pom Pom history Turtle coming up and lay eggs during day time. It was 9:42 am and she still laying her eggs and she start to cover her egg chamber around 9:50 am. After she finished laying eggs, we put a tagged on her BJ0647 & BJ0648 on her front flipper. She is just amazing!

She still laying her eggs

There’s some barnacles on her carapace

We decided to transfer the nest to our hatchery after discussion with one of our advisory group Mr. Gavin Jolis (WWF) since the area hard to monitor every hours if we keep it incubate naturally (in-situ). Thanks to Joel & Isabelle, our guest from France by informed us about the turtle.

Because she is quite special which is for the first time a mother turtle came and laid eggs during day time, we named it ‘BONJORNA’ (bon-jor-na =BUONGIORNA) which is in Italian language as good morning (Buongiorno), but instead of boungiorno we named it bonjorna since she’s a female.

Hope to see BONJORNA for her next visit to Pom Pom Island Beach.

It’s a Hawksbill Turtle!