Day hopping to Sandakan

The boy's dormitory

Due to the military guarding the Malaysian coastline near the southern Philippines, we have been given a curfew for travelling at night so the next few islands were chosen to cover about 20nm between stops in order for us to comfortably get into a safe anchorage before the 6 p.m. deadline.  The distances were fine but this is an area where there is a lot of squally activity so we had to be sure to find protected spots out of the prevailing winds.  

Our shadowing escort

Our destination was to be the Turtle Islands, a turtle sanctuary about 100 nm away where we were to meet up with Sazli, the rally coordinator.  We arrived a couple of days in advance which was a good thing as it gave Paul the time to tackle yet another boat problem. 

Our water maker seemingly died!  Under normal circumstances this wouldn't be a catastrophe but in order to make room for the water maker many years ago, we had to sacrifice one of our water tanks leaving us with only about 250 litres.  And, considering that we're in the middle of nowhere with no great facilities coming up in the near future, what would we do if we had to order in new parts?  Well our resident sleuth / plumber / electrician / carpenter / general dogsbody, maintenance man and miracle worker got stuck in and, lo and behold, we now have a working water maker again, phew!  He dismantled the entire menagerie of the workings, renewed and replaced whatever he could, cleaned and greased whatever he could and, a couple of days later, we held our breaths while he turned it all on again.  Yeah, my hero!!

The Turtle Islands are a breeding spot for both the green and hawksbill turtles who come ashore at night to lay their eggs.  We attended a video on the methods used to ensure the hatchlings stand a better chance of surviving and were to be picked up at night to view all this for ourselves.  How exciting!  But, sadly, the weather didn't play ball.  We had a horrendous storm in the late afternoon causing incredibly rough seas which, in turn, caused most of us to drag our anchors.  By the time we all managed to extract our anchors, fight against the winds, move to another spot, re-anchor, and allow our blood pressure to return to normal, the venture had to be cancelled.  I wanted to cry.  I had so wanted to see this.  When we'd been strolling along the beaches during the daylight hours, we could see dozens upon dozens of tracks where the turtles had come ashore as well as hundreds of holes where the rangers had dug up the eggs to move them to a protected area.  The sex of the hatched turtles depends on the temperature in which the eggs are buried.   If they spend the majority of the day in a warm, sunny position, they are born female; males develop in the more shaded areas.  Four degrees makes a world of difference.  Unprotected eggs are under constant threat from rodents, birds, monitor lizards and elsewhere, human beings so it's wonderful to see such projects in operation.

Our next port of call is Sadakan which was the former capital of British North Borneo.  More about it once we've had time to investigate all the it has to offer.


PHOTO ALBUM:

The indentations under the trees are where the eggs were laid

Turtle tracks in the sand

The girl's dormitory

Monitor lizard

Just before the storm hit