Kenya Exploration: Part II Watamu & Kinyaule
Check out Part I of our blog, Nairobi to Kilifi, here.
Our next stop was Watamu, about an hour away from Kilifi by car. We met our friends at Bahari Hai for dinner at a community-owned seafood restaurant in a beautiful mangrove setting along Mida Creek. The group is provided a concession from the authorities to run an ecotourism restaurant on public land, helping to generate income for the group and community on condition they help protect and conserve the marine ecosystem around them.
After a good rest, we set out to explore the area, first with a visit to Local Ocean Conservation’s turtle rehabilitation facility. While they did not have any turtles on site at the time, the organization works with local fishermen to release turtles caught in fishing nets, having saved more than 1,000 to date over the past decade plus.
Following that, I took a paddle board with Justin Beswick of Bahari Hai out into the Watamu Marine Reserve, an important coral reef and seagrass habitat home to green and hawksbill turtles along with dozens of species of fish and coral, among others. Here we saw our first sea turtles of the trip, several green turtles feeding on the seagrass. Bahari Hai also conducts photo identification of the local populations and shares the nesting beach with Local Ocean. SEE Turtles also provided a Sea Turtles & Plastic grant for Bahari Hai to set up a collection point to recycle plastic on the north side of the marine reserve.
Bahari Hai Team: Courtesy Bahari Hai
Green turtle in Watamu Marine Park: Courtesy Bahari Hai
We continued our packed day with a visit to EcoWorld Recycling, started by marine biologist Steve Trott to support coastal communities and encourage ocean plastic cleanups in the Watamu Marine Protected Area. EcoWorld was founded in 2012 as beach cleanup initiative and has become a great example of a community-based circular economy model, recycling more than 400 tons of plastic in the past 3 years and creating an income for more than 500 plastic waste collectors from women and youth groups and providing direct jobs to 22 staff at the EcoWorld Recycling Facility. Steve will be one our new advisors to our Sea Turtles & Plastic program, helping to determine our future strategy and grants to ensure our funds are used strategically. SEE Turtles will be making a $1,000 donation to help EcoWorld set up a new collection point for the Watamu Marine Reserve to help keep plastic out of this turtle habitat. The day finished with a relaxing boat ride on the Mida Creek estuary. We visited a flock of pink flamingos and watched the sunset over the mangrove.
SEE Turtles president Brad Nahill with Steve Trott of EcoWorld
Sunset over Mida Creek
The following day, we continued our migration north to visit the Kinyaule Village, Robinson Island, where our partners Mariners For Action are working with the local community to clean and recycle plastic waste from this important turtle habitat. We picked up our colleagues Linus Owino and Nicholas in the nearby town of Malindi and headed about an hour north. Awaiting us was a large group of volunteers who were being ferried over to the beach for a cleanup and celebration. When we all arrived, the group headed down Kinyaule beach picking up several bags of plastic as we went.
Beach cleanup, credit Mariners For Action
Community dance, credit Mariners For Action
There was a festive atmosphere as we returned to the Mariners For Action camp. After a few short speeches, the real fun began as several different groups of women began traditional dances, accompanied by men playing homemade instruments. A bit timid at first, the women soon were bringing us up to dance joyfully with them during every song. Afterwards, we visited Mariners’ recycling collection point, funded by our Sea Turtles & Plastic program followed by a meal in a local restaurant and then return to Malindi, where we spent the night in preparation for our safari with Albatros Travel. Stay tuned for our final post on our safari coming soon.