Green Sea Turtles Ras Aljinz Oman

It's Ramadan Eid throughout the Muslim World so 4 of us from our company took advantage of the holiday to visit one of the turtles reserves south of Sur in Oman, to see the Green Sea Turtles come ashore at night and lay their eggs. Rasaljinz is a heavily controlled. The guides take you down to the beach in groups, morning and night, and show a few turtles. Night tours photography is banned. You get to see female turtles, doing their business and laying the 100 eggs, covering the nests, and walking back to the sea. You also see a few baby turtles making their way to the sea. The morning tour begins at 4:00am and again photography is banned until daybreak. You get to see more turtles covering nests and leaving for the sea and a few more babies appearing and whipping off to the sea. You also get to see foxes, yes foxes, on the beach trying to find the nests to get the eggs or the small turtles on the way to the sea. The turtle number and depth of dugouts in the sand where the turtles have finished their egg trenches was amazing. Amazing too the number of turtles tracks going back to the sea in the morning.
Our turtles were younger and the shell was approx 1 metre long. The fin part of the back flippers are almost the size of dinner plates. While you are unable to touch you get as close as 1 metre. The guides are very protective and try desperately hard not to disturb the females before and during the laying proceedure. You don't see the turtles coming onto the beach, you get a small look as a the eggs being laid, however you see quite a few covering nests and returning to the sea.

So what did I learn.
Females do all the work, the male stays at sea all the time within 3 miles?? of the coast
Females mate 3 x a year and come ashore to lay approx 100 eggs.
After the 3 egg drops the females goes off well into the sea on "holiday" to return 3 years later to mate and resume the breeding cycle
Females mate from 37 - 80 years old, every 4 years
They return to the same beach all the time
The temperature of the sand determines the sex of the turtle eggs. 29 degrees above all female, 28 degrees below all male. 28 -29 either sex. Nests are all male or all female.
3% of hatched turtles survive to breed
The turtle digs a 1 meter hole to lie in then inside that another 1 met hole to lay the eggs in.
When the eggs have been laid she then digs and covers over a trench that is 3 to 5 met long to disguise where exactly her nest is
Just another fantastic experience and I haven't mentioned the eco friendly, specifically designed hotel research centre. All designed sand brown, with the windows hidden behind panels to the outside world, so no light is visable to the sea. The turtles follow the light of the sea to return home. The baby turtles followed the light of guides torch on the beach, which is why the hotel is specifically designed, to not be visable.