Scott and his family from Minnesota, wife Amy and their kids, spent a week in Sri Lanka on the Family-Friendly Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation program. In their own words, here’s what the week looked like.
“We participated this week with GoEco,” Scott said. “And we cleaned rivers and we helped wash the turtles, and now we’re cleaning a beach.”
His family jumped in with the rest of the highlights: “We also went and did, like, this bike thing, this bike tour, which is super fun. And, yeah, it was super awesome. And I thought the game night was a lot of fun. There were some unique games from Sri Lanka and a yummy barbecue night. I won the game night.”
Hands-on with the turtles
The sea turtle hatchery was where the week really came alive. “I like getting to massage the sea turtles and spend time with them,” the family shared. Scott described the care that goes into it: “We scrub the sea turtles with sand to help them, help remove their algae.”
“I liked having put, like, the sand where the sand needed to be put and grabbing the water from the ocean for the turtles,” his family added.
“And we filled up turtle tanks with ocean water,” Scott said. And then came the part everyone had been working toward: “We let the sea turtles out into the ocean, too. Oh, yeah. That’s so fun.”
Free time had its own surprises
Between the scheduled activities, the family made the most of their downtime. “One of the times when we had free time, we went on a tuk tuk tour thingy,” they said. A boat trip brought an encounter nobody was expecting: “I had a banana and a monkey went on the boat and ate from my lap.”
More than a normal vacation
For Scott, the week stood out for everything it packed in. “It’s been great,” he said. “We’ve had a ton of experiences that we would have had on a normal vacation, and it’s been a really amazing week for all of us.”
As a parent, Amy noticed something smaller that stuck with her. “As a mom, one of the things I appreciated was kids washing their dishes after the meals,” she said. “So hopefully at home that will translate to more work around the house.”
Would they go back?
“Would you come back to Sri Lanka?” one family member asked the other. “Yeah. Yeah. We had fun.”
“We had a great experience,” Scott said. “Very memorable.”
