The encounter shown above happened in Ubatuba, Brazil, during a dive. Our region is blessed with a lot of algae, fish, sponges and crustaceans that most marine turtles love to eat, so it’s very common for us to see them on our beaches and swimming around our snorkelling and dive sites. They are so sweet and move so gracefully underwater that they enchant almost every diver.

In Brazil, we have something called Projecto Tamar, which aims to protect from extinction the turtles that depend on the Brazilian coastline for food and nesting. Projecto Tamar has an office in Ubatuba (on Praia do Itaguá), where it cares for injured turtles – providing medical attention, keeping them protected until they’re healed, tagging them with the place and date they were found and then releasing them back into the sea. The data they collect is used to monitor where they go and learn more about their habits and so on. Projecto Tamar does an excellent job of educating children and beach communities, especially fishermen, about not eating turtles and not throwing plastic bags and other garbage into the sea that could be mistaken as food and eaten by turtles. They also promote sustainability at the local level by training fishermen and their families in other activities, like crafting handmade toys, souvenirs and recycled-paper notebooks. They even give locals the opportunity to work directly with the project and in the project store, where the profits are used to fund turtle survival programs. Projecto Tamar is another reason why Ubatuba has so many turtles.

Diving is such an extraordinary adventure and the treat of seeing a hawksbill turtle in its real habitat is a truly memorable experience, one that almost everyone can have through our dive centre on Ubatuba. Even if you are not a certified diver, you can take part in a Discover Scuba Diving program and, with an instructor, explore beneath the waves near one of our beautiful islands like Anchieta or Couves.