From The Sunday Times Travel Magazine

Sorry to bound straight in with the serious stuff - but did you know there's a thousand-to-one chance of a newborn turtle making it to adulthood? So, of a thousand baby turtles scrabbling to the water after having hatched at night - about 10 will see sunrise and, of those 10, only one will live long enough to become a serene, aquatic dinosaur patrolling our oceans.

Book the right holiday, though, and you can help shorten those odds. Turtle-friendly resorts all over the world - in South Africa, Australia, Greece and the Maldives - run conservation projects funded by your visit, and you can become as involved as you like. Your day might unfold something like this: breakfast in your private pavilion; morning in the sun before a snorkel safari with a marine biologist; then lunch on the beach before visiting the turtle sanctuary to help feed the little blighters. By now it's time for cocktails, followed by another day of the same. One week later, you fly home with a golden tan, a few extra kilos and a clear conscience.

The reasons for turtles' heart-rendingly high mortality rate are both natural: birds pick off newborns as they scuttle to the water, or sharks eat them at sea; and less natural: poachers steal the eggs; baby turtles walk towards the lights of hotels, mistaking them for moonlight, to get lost or stamped upon; swimming turtles are caught in nets; and some choke on plastic bags thinking they are jellyfish. It's enough to make you fly thousands of kilometres, sit atop a nest like a human tea cosy for nine weeks and then walk the tiny mites down to the sea yourself.

But why the personal interest in turtles? I'm the type who gets more excited about 1p flights to Malaga than saving the earth. However, I've always had an affection for turtles. It's something about the grace and dignity of an animal so huge - on looks alone, the turtle should sink like a stone, yet they glide with the elegance of a synchronised swimmer. They've also been around for 200 million years, surviving the extinction of the dinosaurs and making them among the oldest animals on earth. I spotted my first turtle six years ago while snorkelling in Malaysia. But that was to be my first and last time.

So given the opportunity to holiday in the Maldives, home to two of the most endangered species - the green sea turtle and the hawksbill - I (twist my arm) took it.

Banyan Tree Vabbinfaru is much like any of the other luxury resort islands in the Maldives, except it's got a marine biology lab and six conservationists. You'll spot the hotel from the plane as you come in to land at Malé airport - a sandy teardrop in a slick of turquoise, azure and cerulean.

I arrived just before sunset, which on Vabbinfaru has been shifted from 6pm to 7pm. Bodo the general manager explained to me that 'Island Time' was created in the Maldives a few years ago to 'coincide better with cocktail hour'. I wondered if he could hear the applause in my head. Banyan Tree is more rustic than the other hyper-famous resorts and my villa was beautiful - if not an over-lagoon pavilion as I'd hoped for. An hour after checking in I was at the bar, sinking said cocktail, and feeling as if I'd already been away for a month.

The next morning I woke early, swam to the pontoon and I dozed in the sun. Later, it was back to the island for a rub-down in the spa. The turtles' feeding time is at 4.30pm, when Alex, head of the marine lab, invites guests to watch her feed the 48 babies kept in an offshore sanctuary. These three- and six-week-old green sea turtles (below right) have been taken from five different nests across the Maldives; the hope is that they will thrive under the protection of the pen and can be released at 18 months when they're big enough to avoid predators.

Some guests kayaked over to the sanctuary, others waded out or swam from the shore. While infant whitefin sharks swam around our legs (they're harmless - just insatiably curious), Alex fed the turtles, inviting the group to ask questions.

'Are turtles vegetarians?' (No.)

'Do they really live to be 100?' (Yes.)

'Is Finding Nemo realistic?' (No - instead of swimming alongside their parents for life, as in the Disney movie, a newborn turtle will never see its mother or father.)

The hatching itself is the pinnacle of any turtle fanatic's holiday. At Banyan Tree Vabbinfaru and Angsana Ihuru (its sister island, above left ), a turtle hasn't come ashore to nest since 2003, so they expect a return visit soon. I'd volunteered to be a 'turtle guardian', which meant I could be woken at midnight by the lab telling me a nest had been found and the newborns were making a run for it. If this happened, I must make straight for the beach to scoop them up and gently help them to the water's edge.

Until that time came, I would have to fill my days swimming in pursuit of grown-up turtles. Every day other snorkellers came back with smug stories of hawksbill sightings, while I saw endless bat fish, a moray eel and the odd nurse shark. If turtles aren't your thing (call yourself human?), there are other eco-projects at Banyan - the Blackfin Shark Project or Coral Regeneration - but I was turtle-obsessed.

With a day to go before flying home I had seen every marine animal except a turtle. I was in the water before my breakfast had digested, then skipped lunch to allow maximum turtle-spotting time. At 4pm I'd booked a snorkel safari with biologist Ushan, around Ihuru island. We saw sting ray, barracuda and triggerfish, but no turtles. My mask had started to cloud with panic (and, between you and me, childish tears), when Ushan started pointing maniacally to the coral. I pelted over with the stealth of a hippopotamus to find a young hawksbill turtle nibbling on the coral. It was as if we weren't there, centimetres from him in our garish swimwear and neon snorkels. He was everything I'd hoped he'd be - dignified, nonchalant, majestic, imperturbable.

To think I was one of the few people who'd ever seen a hawksbill was moving. But to think I might be one of the last was enough to make my mask steam up again.

STOP PRESS: Eight weeks later, 91 baby turtles successfully hatched on Vabbinfaru and made it to the sea with the help of staff and 'turtle guardians' at Banyan Tree.

Travel brief

Tropical Locations (020 7229 9199) has a week, with four nights at Banyan Tree Vabbinfaru and three at Angsana Ihuru, full board, from £2,177pp. This applies to January/March 2007 (nesting time) and includes flights from Heathrow and transfers; in April/May (hatching time) prices start from £1,895pp. You can Adopt A Turtle from £41 per year. Banyan Tree Vabbinfaru holds free marine conservation classes; a snorkel safari with a biologist costs £11pp.

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