Those who have the chance to watch an Arribada, the mass laying of eggs by numerous female sea turtles, describe it as one of the most amazing experiences anyone could have. But as the turtles become more endangered, that sight is getting hard to find.

From The Hindu, one person's experience:

She was sweet 17, profoundly pregnant; and yet floated effortlessly, adrift in the warm waters off the east coast of India. The Olive Ridley sea turtle was waiting for darkness to envelope her. She was pregnant for the first time and would breed many more times in her life span of 100 years. Stealth was not her intention as she waited 700 yards from the sandy beach at the mouth of the Rushikulya in Orissa. A few yards away, another female turtle joined her, then a third, followed by a dozen, then hundreds and thousands. They gathered as if for a colossal hen party, instinctively following an uncanny ritual that happens in the dead of the night.

All the expectant mother turtles slowly crawl towards the virgin beach. “Look, there comes the first fat lady,” said turtle researcher Sajan John, holding a tiny torch, as I peered into the darkness. I was witness to an Arribada, which means “Arrival” in Spanish. Arribada is the astounding nesting inclination of the Olive Ridley turtle. Large groups of turtles gather off the seashore and, in a short span of a few nights, they invade the beaches in regular intervals to lay eggs in collective clutches. The nesting density is so high that previously laid eggs are unwittingly dug up by other turtles to lay their own eggs! Each clutch has at least 70-100 ping-pong sized white eggs stacked in a tubular pit excavated in the soft sand.

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