World Turtle Day

As an artist who gets much of her inspiration from the ocean, World Turtle Day is a special day for me. It is a day to appreciate these beautiful creatures and their habitats, and to draw them of course!

I have been lucky enough to see turtles on a few scuba dives. Read on for my two most memorable dives with them.

Victoria scuba diving with a turtle in the Cook Islands.

The first was during the last dive of my PADI Openwater course. The four of us knelt on the sand with our Instructor and Divemaster and completed the last of our skill tests. We were then lucky enough to be joined by family who were already qualified divers, and continued the dive as a ‘fun dive’ with them. We swam around the mounds of coral, all wide eyed and excited by every tiny movement, finding joy in every little fish we saw, including many that frequent divers take for granted. Then the divers at the front of the group started waving frantically, beckoning us over. They had spotted a turtle! Picking away at the coral, enjoying her lunch, we floated and watched for as long as we could before we had to turn the dive around and head back to the boat. A truly special moment for the last dive of our course.

Victoria scuba diving with turtles amongst the seagrass in Egypt on World Turtle Day.

Another special moment was diving in the seagrass plains in Egypt. Diving in the seagrass can be wonderful, or very uninteresting, depending on how lucky you are! I have experienced dives where all you can see for metres and metres is murky, sandy waters and little sealife amongst the seagrass. Looking closely, I’ve seen little seahorses hanging onto the blades of grass, but what people really hope for is dugongs and turtles! (I’m yet to see dugongs - fingers crossed for next time!) On World Turtle Day a few years ago we were so fortunate to come across several turtles. They were huge, bigger than us, and weren’t phased at all by us watching them munch away at the seagrass. It turns out those murky, sandy waters are a good sign, as it means the turtles could be close!

I hope for another encounter with these marvellous reptiles in the future. 🤞🏻 In the meantime I’ll keep drawing and painting them.

Sea Turtle Illustration

This is one element of a larger illustration, titled Reuse and Reduce. Take a look at my previous blog posts to read about the reasons and influences behind the illustration.