Royal Thai Navy Third Fleet Turtle Nursery, Khao Lak

An awesome place to visit if you are interested in wildlife. This turtle sanctuary was set up by Queen Sirikit some years ago. This is on the Royal Thai navy base but we found it easily. A navy guy gave us a tour and his English was good. Normally up to 90% of young turtles die or are killed mainly by birds. So this group collect the turtles as they hatch when they are about 3cm long and keep them for about 6 months when that are released. They also rescue turtles which have been injured or trapped in fishing nets.

We had an amazing few hours here today. As has been said before, the turtles are either rescued due to plastic ingestion or entanglement or the eggs are collected after hatching until tge turtles are the right age for them to realistically survive. We were really fortunate in that we got to the sanctuary early and the man who takes care of the turtles was there and spent a lot of time explaining to us what the purpose of the sanctuary is. He has such passion for what he does and clearly loves his job. It was a real shame as he was letting several back into the ocean later this week but we are going home before then as it would have been amazing to witness. There's a nice coffee shop and gift shop afterwards and the beach was calm and clean too. There is a tsunami memorial there and plenty to do and watch for a good few hours. We will certainly return one day and recommend a visit.