I did this a while ago and it was awsome. The turtles in one particular spot off the West coast of the island are totally unafraid of people and you can swim among them and they'll come right up to you and let you touch them apparently without a qualm.
I am not sure if it's good that they have lost their fear of people, but by becoming semi-tame they've become a tourist attraction and now more and more of the locals who used to hunt them for food and to make jewelry out of the shells and also ate the turtle eggs are now actively involved in turtle conservation projects, protecting their nesting areas etc. because it has become such a great money earner with the locals finding work as guides, glass bottom boat operators etc.
Julia Horrocks, who was born in the United Kingdom, received her undergraduate degree in zoology and psychology from the University of Reading, in Berkshire, UK. She obtained her doctorate in behavioral ecology and primatology from the University of the West Indies, and since 1984 has been a faculty member there.
She started a pioneering initiative called the Barbados Sea Turtle Project in 1987 to protect threatened populations of sea turtles in Barbados. Soon after, a telephone "hotline" was created to increase knowledge about sea turtle nesting sites around the island, and to allow immediate response to emergencies such as turtle strandings and hatchling disorientation. Horrocks manned the hotline single-handedly, 24 hours a day, for several years. She explains, "I responded to every call, by meeting the caller at the site, by day or by night, and this became the public's measure of our commitment and a cornerstone of our public awareness program. I am convinced that nothing replaces the one-on-one discussion of conservation issues on the beach with the vendor, water sports operator, fisherman, beach cleaner, or hotel security officer who has made the report." The hotline has become a nationally respected institution, now operated by graduate students and volunteers. It has contributed greatly to rehabilitation of sea turtle populations around Barbados.
In 1990 the Barbados Sea Turtle Project took a significant leap forward when Horrocks was invited to join WIDECAST as a country coordinator for Barbados. She and WIDECAST executive director Karen Eckert (a 1997 Pew Fellow) produced the first action plan for sea turtle recovery in the Caribbean.
Through the Barbados Sea Turtle Project, Horrocks and her students have conducted research and implemented monitoring programs for hawksbill, green, and leatherback sea turtles. The Project's monitoring programs have yielded a great deal of sound information, including more than ten years of data on hawksbill sea turtle nesting activity, and five years of data on the population of hawksbills that feed on Barbados' reefs. In response to Project data indicating that sea turtle populations were severely depleted, a national moratorium on their capture and trade was established in 1998
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Horrocks says that ecotourism may be "one of the few viable ways to encourage conservation and sustainable use of these animals in this area of the world ." Thus, another aspect of her Pew Fellowship is to help Caribbean countries understand and develop sustainable sea turtle ecotourism. Barbados' "Swim with the turtles" attraction is hugely popular with tourists, yet may be causing harm to the turtles through too much handling, food, and familiarity with humans. Horrocks has proposed some changes to the venture to allow the fisherfolk involved to derive greater economic benefits while interfering less with the natural lives of the turtles. In the future, she plans to work with hotel staff and developers to preserve nesting beach habitat for sea turtles.
http://www.pewmarine.org/pewFellowsDirectoryTemplate.php?PEWSerialInt=5160Info on swimming with the turtles here:
http://www.barbados.org/species/turtles-romance.htm