Our sea turtles and beaches

Many years ago when I first married my wife, we happened to join on a "Cuti Cuti Malaysia" tour to the East Coast and it was a long ride on the bus from Kuala Lumpur. We met a family from Hongkong in the same tour and it was really fun to holiday in the East Coast. Though I had been to East coast a couple of times, it really did not come to my mind that one day I could be residing in East Coast. What impressed me the most about the East Coast states were the clean and white sandy beaches, the serene and quiet picturesque villages with coconut trees, the salted fish stores and also the colourful kites. Whenever I visited East Coast, I bought salted fish for my family as it was really a tasty dish until at later part I was told salted fish is bad for health and could cause nose and throat cancer! My favorite was actually bringing back all those big and artistic kites, hanging them on the walls and decorating my home! Those were the East Coast days!

I remember that we stayed in Rantau Abang for the night and was scheduled to see turtle laying eggs late at night. We all waited till late almost 2 am and there was no sign of any turtle coming up the beach and finally we gave up and returned to the hotel. The sea turtles or the "Penyu" especially the giant "Penyu Belimbing" are becoming very rare and are protected species for our country. The stretch of beaches along De Monicke bay or Pantai Mak Nik that where my East Coast home is, is still a popular spot for sea turtle to lay eggs. The surveillance and collection of turtle eggs are contracted out by the state government so that eggs are to be "harvested" and sent to turtle sanctuaries for artificial hatching before the youngs are released back to the ocean again. There is a bright spot light for the beach volley ball court, that lights up every night to brighten up the whole place and also to prevent couples from having close proximity ( I was told). Now because it is the laying egg season for the turtle, the beam is turned off till November so as to encourage the landing instead of scaring away those egg laying female turtles! That is a very considerate and heartening news to hear about the effort being undertaken to preserve these turtles.

The beaches along that stretch however is in deplorable condition with rubbish, plastic bags, cups and bottles thrown all over the place despite many big dustbins are provided by the Kemaman City Council (MPK). During the monsoon season I was told that all the rubbish were brought in from inland by the rivers. But now we are having dry season and yet all the non bio-degradable plastic containers and bags are seen everywhere. It is clearly the result from inconsiderate citizens that threw all the rubbish after they gathered in the beach for a picnic or participated in some other socializing activities. When I saw this, the first thing that came to my mind was that, what happened to our educational system? Are these people as students once not being told or taught to keep clean and stay hygienic? To start with personal hygiene, one must not spit and also throw rubbish everywhere? To me, this is a real failure of our educational system! Look at what damage they had done to the beaches, it is really an eye sore!

When we used to have those turtles and tigers in abundance in our land, we took things for granted.  Now they are gradually dwindling in numbers and becoming extinct! If we do not put in effort to take good care of their habitat and preserve them at the same time, we will lose them all forever.

Please keep those beaches clean so to attract those turtles back here and also preserve our jungles for the tigers to roam again in our land.