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# Forces of Nature
- URL: https://tombrewer.co.uk/forces-of-nature/
- Published: 2026-03-15T16:33:40.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-21T09:31:33.000Z
- Author: Tom Brewer
- Tags: Newsletter, #Migrated-1789982889005, #Import 2026-09-21 09:29

At the Sea Turtle Hatchery and Rescue Centre, a few kilometres north of Hikkaduwa, a dedicated team works around the clock to protect five endangered species - Olive Ridley, Leatherback, Loggerhead, Hawksbill, and Green - their eggs monitored in neat mounds of sand until the moment they’re ready to meet the sea.

![](https://tombrewer.co.uk/content/images/2026/09/94a87614-e272-4d15-ad6f-63a8b5133e36_9504x6336-jpeg-1.jpg)

We learned about their conservation partnerships with research institutions around the world, watched staff tend to adults rescued and recovering from injuries, and then we each held a day-old turtle and walked it down to the waterline as it left for the open ocean for the very first time.

![](https://tombrewer.co.uk/content/images/2026/09/99a9f7ed-04dd-4d72-9d5c-1b40f732e6d4_6203x4135-jpeg.jpg)

It turns out that the centre’s oldest resident, a vast, ancient green turtle who surfaces for air only once every two hours, apparently unbothered by the concept of urgency, shares my name. Our local fixer Dinesh found this enormously entertaining and has not let it go since.

The son of the owner spoke to me in careful, Google-translated fragments about photography, asking about my camera with a keen interest in the specifics; model numbers, megapixels etc with the focused enthusiasm of someone who relished the opportunity to geek out about photography. I showed him some of my photos from other places, and from the Madu not far up the road which he requested I share with him to show his family. Before we left, he asked me to send photos as we continue our trip across Sri Lanka.

In the afternoon, the tone became more serious. The Community Tsunami Education Center & Museum holds the records of 26 December 2004 with quiet, unflinching care. To stand inside it is to confront a scale of loss that is beyond comprehension not abstractly, but specifically, face by face, village by village. What stayed with me most was learning about the fishing communities along this stretch of coast. Many of the fishermen were far out at sea when the wave came. The ocean, the very thing that sustained them, protected them that day, and then delivered them home to devastation. They didn’t know. It’s a fact that I felt had a particular cruelty to it.

In a neighbouring building, a single train carriage sits not far from the railway line, where the Queen of the Sea was stopped in its path. The first wave halted the train; passengers climbed on top, thinking they were safe. The second wave took almost everyone. Of the more than a thousand people on board, two survived. The carriage itself doesn’t need explanation. Battered and dented, a haunting and poignant reminder of the scale of the disaster.

![](https://tombrewer.co.uk/content/images/2026/09/a9c70289-3755-45f5-91cc-626472522fba_8064x4536-jpeg.jpg)

The drive back to Hikkaduwa was quiet. We passed the Tsunami Honganji Viharaya, the Japanese-built memorial that stands at the shore, a great stone figure whose outstretched palm faces the sea, commanding it to never do this again. The shoulders of the figure are marked at the height the wave reached when it broke across the land, roughly 10 metres high.

We had also visited the Āriapāla Mask Museum and the Srī Vijayārāma Ancient Temple earlier in the day, both extraordinary in different ways. At the temple, intricate wood carvings lined every surface. A group of young children found us quickly, keen to practice their English, and led us through the space with the easy pride of people showing you something they love.

I had expected this to be a day of disparate, disconnected things. It wasn’t. The turtle hatchery, the tsunami museum, the fishermen coming home to a coastline that no longer existed. Sri Lanka has been shaped by the sea and battered by it, nurtured by the natural world and catastrophically undone by it. The people here have rebuilt, and carry on rebuilding, with a warmth and generosity that makes the loss feel even more unjust. The island’s relationship with nature is complicated.

![](https://tombrewer.co.uk/content/images/2026/09/50dc141e-cc37-4e77-8eb3-13657d5574e1_9504x6336-jpeg.jpg)