Hurawalhi hosts four-day turtle excursions with Olive Ridley Project founder Martin

Hurawalhi Maldives has hosted Martin Stelfox, founder and CEO of the Olive Ridley Project, for a series of awareness sessions about sea turtles.

In a statement, the recently opened resort said that during Martin’s four-day visit last week, guests and team members received a lot of interesting information about sea turtles and the threats they face.

Martin joined guests on two Turtle Tour snorkelling excursions; they visited three different snorkel sites that are known to have resident populations of sea turtles – Kuredu Caves (aka Turtle Airport), Kuredu Lagoon and Komandoo House Reef – which allowed guests to not only see sea turtles up close and personal, but also to get plenty of fascinating insights from Martin and Lisa Bauer, the resort’s resident marine biologist.

“The Turtle Tours were charity events and it was with great pleasure to be able to make a generous donation to the Olive Ridley Project that will surely be beneficial to the organisation’s conservations and protection projects across the Indian Ocean,” the statement read.

According to Hurawalhi, Martin also dived at two of Lhaviyani Atoll’s famous dive sites; Kuredu Express and Kuredu Caves. During the expedition organised by Prodivers, the divers spotted a whopping 16 green sea turtles, the resort said.

On Tuesday evening, at the weekly Prodivers’ Divers Night in Coco Bar, Martin gave a talk on sea turtle biology and the mission of the Olive Ridley Project. To wrap up the visit, Martin joined the excursion to the Turtle Sanctuary at the nearby island of Naifaru to visit the four Olive Ridley sea turtles that had to be transferred there for rehabilitation after being rescued by Hurawalhi and Prodivers.

Martin and the team also removed a ghost net from the nearby Latheef dive site, preventing the reef from being further damaged and marine life being entrapped.