Akamas Sea Turtles: Track Andrea and Lara Live Across the Mediterranean.
This summer, two Akamas Sea Turtles, a green turtle called Andrea (and a loggerhead called ‘Lara’) slipped back into the sea off Lara Bay carrying a small satellite transmitter on her shell. Every few days since, she has been sending back her position from somewhere in the eastern Mediterranean. Her name was not chosen at random. She is named after Andreas Demetropoulos, the man who, more than anyone, is the reason there are still turtles here at all.
Following Andrea: The Akamas Turtles and the Man Who Saved Them
In 1978, Andreas Demetropoulos, then director of the Cyprus Fisheries Department, began something that had never been attempted in the Mediterranean.
An organised effort to protect nesting sea turtles. He and his lifelong colleague Myroula Hadjichristoforou started on the beaches of Lara and Toxeftra, in the Akamas, a short sail from where we cast off in Latchi.
When they began, fewer than 300 nests were recorded on Cypriot beaches in a season. Green turtles had been hunted almost to extinction. Decades of patient work, night patrols, protective cages over nests, hatcheries, and Cyprus’s turtle-protection law that Demetropoulos helped drive through, turned that around. In recent seasons the island has logged well over 2,000 nests. It was the first project of its kind in the Mediterranean, and it became the model that others followed.
Demetropoulos died in 2022, aged 84, still president of the Cyprus Wildlife Society he had co-founded. His work did not stop with him. The satellite tag on Andrea’s shell was fitted by MedTRACS, the research and conservation society now carrying the project forward, and among the people patrolling those same beaches today is his son, Simon, who has taken up his father’s banner. A founder, a turtle that bears his name, and a son continuing the work: it is hard to think of a better summary of what conservation is really for.
Latchi’s own turtles
Lara Bay is famous as green turtle country. But our stretch – Polis, Latchi, Argaka and the beaches running along the bay — has its own nesting turtles, and here it is the loggerhead (Caretta caretta) you are most likely to be sharing the sand with.
The loggerheads come ashore through the warm months, roughly May to August, to dig their nests above the tideline. Along the coast between La Plage, just outside Latchi harbour, and the campsite towards Polis, you may spot small metal cages set into the sand, each one marks a nest that conservationists have found and protected. Hatching runs a little later than the greens, often into August and September. From laying to the first hatchlings takes around 60 days on average, though it can stretch longer when conditions are cool.
A couple of things about these animals never stop being remarkable. The sex of the hatchlings is decided by temperature: cooler nests produce mostly males, warmer nests mostly females, tipping over around 29°C. As the climate warms, that balance is a real and growing worry for the future of the species. And when the hatchlings finally reach the water, they navigate using the Earth’s magnetic field, the same invisible map that will, years later, guide the survivors back to nest near the very beach where they were born.
Sharing the beach with Turtles
If you are on our beaches between spring and autumn, a few small habits make all the difference:
- Don’t drive umbrella poles into the sand — lay the umbrella down or weight it, in case a nest lies undiscovered beneath you.
- Take your litter home, and keep clear of any caged or marked nests.
- If you are on the sand at first light, watch for hatchlings heading the wrong way — inland, confused by lights — rather than out to sea.
Leave nothing behind but your footprints, as the saying goes here.
Follow the Akamas Sea Turtles yourself
Andrea is not travelling alone. A loggerhead Akamas Sea Turtle named Lara — after the bay itself — was released the same day, also tagged by MedTRACS in partnership with the Sea Turtle Conservancy. You can follow both of their journeys on the live tracking maps:
- Andrea (green turtle): https://www.medtracs.org/projects/satellite-tracking-marine-turtles/andrea
- Lara (loggerhead): https://www.medtracs.org/projects/satellite-tracking-marine-turtles/lara
When we sail the Akamas coast, we are crossing water these turtles have travelled for millions of years — long before the harbour, the boats, or any of us. Watching where Andrea and Lara go next is a quiet reminder of whose sea this really is.
Theo & Philippos
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