Exploring The East-Coast of Sabah/Borneo - Finale!!

On day 3 we had to say goodbye to the friendly staff and the nice location of Sukau Rainforest Lodge. We continued our trip to this nice ‘bounty island’ called Selingan Island. We departed from the jetty point in Sandakan and the first 15 minutes we passed a huge water village and saw the mosque. A really weird looking combination if you see it in 1 photograph.

After one hour we arrived at this beautiful island and we were al day free to snorkel, explore the island or to just swim and tan. At night, before dinner time, we had to watch an educational movie about the Green Turtle. The Green Turtle is mostly threatened by the fishing nets where they get stuck in and the selling of the turtle eggs on local markets. What they do at Selingan Island is to close down the beach from sunset to sunrise for people so that the Turtles can come ashore and lay their eggs. The rangers will capture the eggs and put them in man-made incubation chamber. When the small turtles are born, they set them free again in the ocean. Unfortunately only 4% survives. When we visited Selingan Island we were all part of this. We saw the turtle laying eggs, which was amazing to see! They look like ping pong balls and just fall into the hole they dug. While the turtle is doing that, she is totally in trance. That night, our turtle lay 83 eggs. So we could watch this for like 20 minuts! Everybody gets a good view of it. Because she doesn’t realizes that the rangers took the eggs, she will close the hole with sand using her flippers. When she will start to do that, you will know she is done :-). She will rest for a while and then go back to the ocean.

We had to give her that rest by herself. The rangers showed us how they put the eggs in the hand-made hole and after that we saw how they set free the little cute turtles! We helped the turtles if they were going in the wrong direction, so not to the ocean but to the beachside. They feel very small and they sputter lively. After this wonderful experience we went to our little cottageroom and fell asleep easily :-).

The next and last day of our tour, we went back to Sandakan for a small city tour and to catch our plane back to Kota Kinabalu. We visited the Australian War Memorial & The Agnes Keith House. She wrote 3 books about Borneo and about her life in Borneo. These books I will start reading soon! So I will let you know what I think. A good lunchplace by the way is the English Tea House in Sandakan! It looks really nice and the food is great!

My final word:

I have to say that this was a unique experience to see so much wildlife in a short amount of time! I would definitely recommend it!