How to snorkel with turtles respectfully, a short guide

To snorkel with a wild sea turtle respectfully, keep a few metres away, come from the side, and never touch, chase or feed it. Leave it a clear way up to the surface, because a turtle breathes air just as you do.

Why do the manners matter?

A turtle on a reef is not resting for our pleasure. It is eating, or it is saving its strength between two breaths. A grown green turtle lives on sea grass and algae, and grazing takes up a good part of its day.

When a swimmer comes too close, the turtle stops eating and swims off. Once does little harm. Twenty times a day, every day of the season, is another matter. In a small bay the same few turtles meet every visitor, so each of us is one of the twenty.

There is the law as well. Sea turtles are protected in Sri Lanka, and harming or catching one is an offence.

And there is a plain reason of your own. People who stay back and stay still see more. A calm turtle keeps feeding in front of you for minutes. A chased turtle is gone in seconds.

How close can you go?

There is no single number, because conservation bodies give different ones:

• Dive and snorkel codes, such as those from PADI and the Olive Ridley Project, speak of about 1.5 to 2 metres.
• Official guidance in Hawaii asks for about 3 metres.
• Some national guidelines ask for far more.

Take the bigger number that the place allows. A simple measure in the water: if you stretched out your arm and a friend stretched out theirs, your hands should still be far from the shell. If the turtle changes direction, swims faster, or looks at you and turns away, you are too close already. Stop kicking and let the gap grow.

Sometimes the turtle closes the distance itself. That is allowed, for the turtle. Keep still, keep your hands to yourself, and let it pass.

How should you approach?

• From the side, slowly. The turtle should be able to see you and to leave. Never come from behind, and never head-on.
• Never from above. Do not swim over a turtle and do not float on top of it. It must come up to breathe, and you are in the way.
• Never block the way out. In a group, stay together on one side. A ring of swimmers around a turtle is a trap, however kind the faces.
• Float, do not chase. Keep your arms by your sides and your kicks small. Splashing and noise carry under water.
• Let it go. When the turtle leaves, the meeting is over. Another will come, or the same one will come back.

What should you never do?

• Never touch. Not the shell, not the flippers, not "only once". Touching stresses the animal.
• Never feed. In some places along this coast visitors hold out seaweed to bring turtles close. Please do not join in. Turtles find their own food, and a turtle that expects food from hands may bite one by mistake.
• Never ride or hold. It needs saying, because it still happens.
• Never stand on the reef. It is alive, and it is where the turtles eat. Float over it, and put your feet down only on clear sand.
• Never corner a turtle for a picture.

And photographs? Take them from where you are. Use the zoom, not your legs. Switch off the flash and any video light before you get in. Conservation codes ask for no flash near nesting turtles and hatchlings, and it is a good rule under water too.

Sticks for cameras bring the lens closer than the arm, so count the distance from the camera and not from your face. And look up from the screen now and then. The turtle is better in real life.

How do you explain it to children?

Children are often better at this than adults, once they have a rule they can say out loud. Tell them before they go in, not after. Five rules fit on one hand:

• Hands to yourself.
• Stay beside, never on top.
• No chasing.
• No food.
• Feet up over rocks and reef.

Then give them a job: "Count how many times it comes up to breathe." A child who is counting is a child who is floating still.

If your child is small or not yet a swimmer, there is no need for a mask at all. From the sand you can see the heads come up to breathe, and it is a fine game to spot them.

How does this work at Ohana?

Wild sea turtles often feed on the reef of our bay, most of all early in the morning and at sunset, and often only a few metres from the beach. We lend snorkel masks free, in children's sizes too, ask at the bar, and we tell you where to walk in: where the sand is clear, because sea urchins live in the rocks. Our rule is the short one: never touch, chase or feed the turtles. On request, when someone is free, one of our team goes into the water with you.

Nobody can promise you a turtle. Calm water and a little patience are the best help, and we wrote down the rest in where to swim with turtles near Hiriketiya. For other bays along this coast, see our list of places for snorkeling near Hiriketiya and Dikwella.

There is more about the bay on our page on how to swim with turtles at Turtle Beach.

Good to know

• Ohana is at Turtle Beach, Dikwella, less than five minutes by road from Hiriketiya.
• Snorkel masks are lent free. Ask at the bar.
• Sea urchins live in the rocks. Walk in where the sand is clear.
• Never touch, chase or feed the turtles. At a hatchling release, no flash, and nobody stands between the hatchlings and the water.
• Filtered water is on the house, for after your swim.