Turtle Festival

Turtle festival is arranged by Forest Department, Village Panchayat, Kasav Mitramandal. Please call at respective villages directly to know about the festival dates and other details.

  • Sahyadri Nisarga Mitra (SNM) started Marine turtle conservation first time in Maharashtra.
  • In the year 2002 SNM started actual protection work for Olive Ridley (Lepidochelys olivacea) in Velas, a tiny village on northernmost boundary of district Ratnagiri. Within a short span of time, SNM spread the protection work to entire coast of Maharashtra state, that's about 720 km of coastline in all.
  • 1st year, SNM undertook protection work in 1 village and successfully protected 50 nests.
  • SNM with its limited resources is trying its level best to protect marine turtles and empower villagers.
 

Velas Contact Numbers

  • Local people make turtle festival arrangements.
  • For more details about Velas please call any Homestay owner on this link - Contact Numbers of Homestay at Kasav Mitra Mandal, Velas. Please note that these numbers are very difficult to connect.
  • SNM empowered villagers by starting Velas Homestay to host the tourists visiting during Turtle Festival in 2006.
  • Turtle festival is an opportunity for metro-tourists to bid best wishes to the newly born sea turtle hatchlings while crawling towards their home. 

Bus

Starts from

at

Reaches

at

Pune - Velas Pimpri 09.30 Velas 17.30
Velas - Pune Velas 06.45 Swargate (Pune) 13.30
Mumbai - Velas Mumbai 12.30 Velas 20.00
Velas - Mumbai Velas 06.30 Mumbai 12.30
Mumbai - Velas Mumbai 00.30 Velas 06.30
Velas - Mumbai Velas 09.00 Mumbai 15.00
Ratnagiri - Velas Ratnagiri 16.15 Velas 22.30
Velas - Ratnagiri Velas 05.00 Ratnagiri 11.00
Dapoli - Velas Dapoli 14.50 Velas 17.30
Velas - Dapoli Velas 07.30 Dapoli 10.30
Mandangad - Velas Mandangad 08.10 Velas 09.15
    10.10   11.30
    14.30   15.30
Velas - Mandangad Velas 09.30 Mandangad 10.30
    11.55   12.55
    16.15   17.15