Arribada - The Birthing story of sea turtles
I learned to dive about twelve years back and ever since then my perspective of vacations have changed. My interest lies more underwater than above. In one of my dives in the Similan Islands off Burma and Thailand, the most affable creature amongst all the underwater friends was the sea turtles. The ones I played with were the tubby Olive Ridley Turtles that swim in the warm waters of Andaman Sea. Unafraid, they swam up real close to the divers for an underwater photo op. or a tap and tickle even.
At a time when environmental awareness is the need of the hour fuelled by my passion for sea life, I try to look above and under for inspirations and obviously – marine life has been pretty popular in many of my designs. I have done just enough sarees with fishes, all kinds of exotic marine creatures like starfish, octopus, jellyfish, seahorse and many more. Now my attention has turned to the adorable and amiable sea creatures – sea turtles.
Mystery of Arribada
The olive ridley turtle and the mystery about their synchronized nesting behavior, also known as Arribada makes an enchanting story. Basically female olive ridley turtles swim thousands of kilometers to find the beach where they were born to give birth. How faithful to the land is that! Every year, between January and March, thousands of female olive ridley turtles converge on the shores to lay eggs. Under moonlight, the females slowly make their way across the beach, one flipper after the next, until they find a suitable spot to make a nest. This mass nesting phenomenon is called arribada (Spanish for arrival) and occurs at only a handful of beaches across the planet.
Arribada - Is a spectacular vission
The arribada is surreal to witness — over two lakh turtles were recorded in shores of Odisha , Gahirmatha alone in 2019. In addition to the congregation in Odisha, there are a number of sites all along the coast of India, from the shores of West Bengal down to Tamil Nadu, and in the Gujarat as well. What makes this turtle’s nesting behavior special is that pregnant females return to the same beach where they were born to lay their eggs. This means that a female hatched in Gahirmatha in Odisha will not nest elsewhere.
The Hatchlings
Two months after the eggs are laid, hatchlings emerge — each about the size of a matchbox — and make their way to the ocean, where they spend the rest of their lives eating, swimming distances and many entertaining divers like me.When the turtles attain puberty, a teenager olive ridley turtle of thirteen years, make the journey back to their natal home, often travelling for months (and hundreds of kilometers) in the process. This is where I encountered them on their voyage to homeland.
how Do the hatchlings track back to the same shores
Why they find their way back to the same shores that they were born is a mystery for the most part, though the how of it is pretty fascinating. There are few theories, to unveil the mystery of how they manage to find their native birth place in the tumultuous lattice of oceans and ocean currents.
Unlike humans, olive ridley sea turtles have the innate ability to sense the Earth’s magnetic field, a trait that is shared by many migratory species. When baby ridleys hatch from their leathery egg shells, the precise geomagnetic location of the beach is imprinted on their brain, along with other factors like light, smell, temperature, etc. This is why it’s crucial to avoid contact with the hatchlings when they make their way to the ocean for the first time. Any external or unnatural influence tamper with their birth orientation.
Then there are ocean currents to consider: Ocean waters are constantly moving in a pattern that has remained largely constant for millennium. Underwater, these currents move at a fairly rapid pace, and are used by a number of migratory sea creatures as a kind of transport system.Others, researchers believe the turtles rely on astrological cues. I am not sure how that will work in a tiny turtle head. Few more think the young females simply follow elders to the breeding site.
Besides India, the biggest breeding ground for these olive ridley turtles is in Costa Rica.
My saree is a capture of the delightful sea creature and these pregnant olive ridley turtles. The charcoal black silk lends an appropriate back ground highlighting the vividness of ocean life. The entire sea scape is hand painted on silk in Gond art. Gond art is a very popular folk art of India from the Deccan region. I have written elaborately about it in my blog on folk art This style of painting is characterized by simple dots and dashes. The simplicity yet vivaciousness of Gond art suitably gives life to the animated marine life on the saree.
An idea is only an idea till it find an artist to breathe on the canvass. My painter has really tried to understand the subject and did a fantastic job to deliver with precision and flamboyance.
Worth mentioning here that the saree that I now named Arribada has inspired one of my longtime clients, Geetha Mahadevan. Geetha happens to be an avid environmentalist. Keeping the theme of sea life and turtle hatching in mind, we created a saree together for her. Geetha explained to me the phenomenon of Arriba which she has personally witnessed in Tamil Nadu. The saree I did for her is hand painted on cotton which shows a bale of turtles making their way back to the sea post nesting stay on the beaches of Tamil Nadu.
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