Why we didn't visit Ras Al Jinz Turtle Reserve (and what we did instead)

As huge wildlife enthusiasts, the Ras Al Jinz Turtle Reserve was one of the places I was most looking forward to visiting in Oman. We didn’t end up going on a turtle tour here for reasons I’ll go into in this guide, but we did end up having our own magical turtle experience instead.

Despite not visiting in peak season (May to September) we were lucky enough to see seven baby turtles and one mother on their way out to sea at sunrise. It still remains one of the best things we did on our five week trip in the country, as well as one of our most memorable ever wildlife experiences.

This guide is everything we learnt about turtle watching in Ras Al Jinz.

Why we didn’t visit the Ras Al Jinz Turtle Reserve

The Ras Al Jinz Turtle Reserve is the only place in Oman where you can legally take a tour to see turtles on land (many companies operate snorkelling trips to see turtles in various places in the country). It’s known as one of the best places in the world to view Green turtles.

The turtle tours at Ras Al Jinz Turtle Reserve either take place at night to see mothers laying eggs, or first thing in the morning to see turtles making their way out to sea (both mothers and babies).

It all sounded great and we had planned to take both tours.

As we were visiting in November - which is outside of peak season (May - September) - I started looking at Google reviews to see whether people were still seeing the turtles. I wanted to manage my expectations as I know in peak season you can see loads, but I wasn’t sure how dramatically the numbers dropped off at other times of year.

As I was reading the reviews I saw a number of different accounts of unethical behaviour on the tours from a series of different reviewers. Not the behaviour of any staff at the reserve, but of tourists.

The thing is, reviewers claimed that the staff had such large numbers in their tour groups that they couldn’t control the tourists and things such as shining white light (instead of red which doesn’t disturb turtles) on the mothers when laying and then picking babies up and hindering their progress out to sea was allowed to take place.

Now I didn’t witness any of this and I am sure that this isn’t a common occurrence, but it worried me enough that I no longer wanted to go. To be fair to the reserve, I did meet several people that took a tour and said that though the numbers were high, everyone behaved, but I still didn’t want to chance it given how bad some of the reviews were (you can see them for yourself on Google).

When we made up our minds not to go, I decided to look and see if there was any other way of seeing turtles in the area - which thankfully there was. And as we don’t generally like tours and only take them when we absolutely have to, it ended up working out much better for us.

Although it’s worth noting there is no way of watching the egg laying process outside of Ras Al Jinz Turtle Reserve, as the beaches in the area all close at sunset to allow the turtles to lay in peace. The bit you can see without a tour is mothers and babies returning to sea in the early morning.

Ras Al Jinz Turtle Reserve Beach

Even though we didn’t visit the reserve for a tour, we did go to check out the beach. If you’re not a guest of the reserve hotel, the cost to access the beach is 2 OMR per person (approx USD $5.20) and this is payable at the visitor centre.

It’s an absolutely stunning beach, much more beautiful than the other turtles beaches we visited in the area. With gorgeous clear blue water, pristine golden sand and steep cliff walls, it’s worth visiting even if you don’t plan on taking a tour.

Once you have your tickets you can drive through the security gate and park right beside the beach. We couldn’t believe we were the only ones there! We’ve heard that sometimes you can see turtles in the surf waiting for nightfall when they’ll come in to lay their eggs, although we didn’t get lucky.

The beach closes at 4.30pm and I would recommend visiting more towards the end of the day as I think the chance to see a turtle would be higher closer to nightfall than when we went in the middle of the day.

There’s also a small museum at the visitor centre which we didn’t have time to visit so can’t comment on the quality. It’s technically 2 OMR per person, but you get a 1 OMR discount if you’re also visiting the beach.

We noted the visitor centre had some walking tracks listed too. It was absolutely scorching when we were there, so we didn’t get the chance to try them, but you can see the details in the photo below.

Our experience seeing turtles at sunrise

To the best of our knowledge, all turtle beaches in Oman close at sunset to allow for mothers to lay their eggs in peace. Therefore as mentioned you can’t witness this outside of the Ras Al Jinz Turtle Reserve tour.

However, several beaches we looked into opened again at 5am and this gives you a little time to see the stragglers that didn’t make it back out to sea during the night.

It’s easily one of the most memorable wildlife experiences I’ve ever had, especially because we were able to witness it without a guide. We headed to the beach about 20 minutes after it opened (5.20am) and there was enough light to see without the need for a torch.

We made our way up the beach and saw loads of large turtles tracks left by mothers that had already made it back to the water.

As we continued along the sand we started to see baby turtles as they scurried along the beach towards the sea. The baby turtles, combined with the soft light of sunrise and even a few specs of bioluminescence in the water was a truly magical sight. Something I’ll never forget.

We saw seven babies in total - which isn’t a lot by Omani standards - but was a dream come true for us. We also got to see the empty nests complete with broken egg shells which was another first for us.

After the sun got higher in the sky we left the beach and met a very friendly local at the parking area that said there was still a mother around on the next beach along. He showed us where to go and we got to see a mother too! I couldn’t believe it!

Her progress back to sea was really slow, as it’s so exhausting for them to move on land and in the end some locals helped her get back into the water.

All in all, it was an incredible morning and though we saw far less turtles than we would have done at the reserve, it was more special because we weren’t on a tour and we didn’t have to worry about what anyone else was doing.

If you’ve ever read any of our other guides, you’ll know that we always share details on exact locations for everywhere we visit, but just because this one involves vulnerable wildlife, we’re going to say please email us for the exact location of the turtles we saw.

We’re happy to give the exact spots over email, but as we are a bit nervous about what we read online about people’s behaviour when viewing the turtles, we don’t want to write it publicly.

Turtle watching etiquette

  • Never shine a light on mother or baby turtles unless the light is red, which doesn’t affect them.

  • Never touch the turtles unless you have to genuinely save it for some reason - eg it’s the middle of the day and the turtle will die from sun exposure

  • Always give the turtles a bit of space, especially mothers making their way back to sea which is incredibly exhausting for them

  • Always watch your feet around the babies because we heard terrible things about people accidentally trampling them - they are small and can move quickly when they need to

  • Never go on to turtles nesting beaches after sunset or before 5am when they are closed to allow the turtles to nest peacefully

When to see turtles at Ras Al Jinz

The best time to see Green turtles in this area (other turtles species also nest here, but the greatest numbers are Green turtles) is between May and September and we’re told at this time you should see plenty. Our visit was in early November and we saw seven babies and one mother.

We chatted to locals and were told you are likely to see turtles year round, but if you want to see higher numbers you are best sticking to peak season or close to (October is said to still be pretty good).

If you’re going to look for them yourselves like we did, for the best chances you probably do want to be as close as possible to peak season, but as mentioned locals told us they do see them year round, so hopefully you will get lucky!

Where we stayed close to Ras Al Jinz Turtle Reserve

We stayed in the small village of Ras al Hadd, around a 15 minute drive from the reserve. Though if you’re planning on doing the turtle tours you might want to stay at the reserve itself as the room (safari tent) comes with the morning and night tour included. It is a little pricey, so we also looked at the Sama Ras Al Jinz Resort before finding a smaller guesthouse nearby:

Salem Fish Guesthouse

Booking.com

We stayed at Salem Fish Guesthouse. It’s a small locally owned guesthouse with simple but comfortable rooms. The beds were softer than most and there was a good ceiling fan, so even though it was hot during our visit we didn’t need to operate the AC (which was noisy). The bathroom was the standard wet room bathroom, which is common in Omani guesthouses, but the shower was decent and there was plenty of hot water.

As most visitors eat at the guesthouse (which is a communal BBQ fish dinner) it has a social atmosphere with most people sitting around drinking tea and chatting in the evening (along with Salem, the owner). There was no pressure though if you prefer to do your own thing and everyone was quiet, so it didn’t produce a noisy atmosphere by any means.

You can take tours to see dolphins, go fishing, or even into the desert, but we were here for the turtles so didn’t do any of them ourselves. Other than tours there’s not a whole lot of things to do in the area, but you can go to the beach - either the local ones, or the more beautiful one at Ras al Jinz.

You can check out the reviews and prices on:

Getting to Ras Al Jinz

Ras al Jinz is around 250km and a three hour drive from Muscat. It’s 51km and a 45 minute drive from Sur or 155km and a 2 hour drive from Bidiyah (close to Wahiba Sands). The road is paved all the way from each of these places. If visiting Ras al Jinz Turtle Reserve beach the last couple of minutes to the parking area are on a gravel road, but it’s well graded and suitable for any car.