They're All Just Animals
04 August 2016 | Kinabatangan River
Friday 29 July 2016
Despite waiting 4 1/2 hours to start, the turtleing was really cool. Turns out that making little turtles is a full time, year round activity in the appropriately named Turtle Islands so we saw a 100+ Kg female laying eggs (she had dug a pit deeper than her height plus a hole below that to drop in about a hundred Ping-Pong ball eggs), turtle ranglers take out the eggs and put them in a protected nest (a quick count indicated 50 to 100 thousand eggs in the hatchery) and the release of hatchlings to run frantically for the water (holding one indicated they're much stronger than expected). Hate to cast aspersions, but turtles (green and hawksbills use these islands) are dumber than a box of rocks. As their brains are of a size, one may truly call them pea-brains. Regardless, we love them, truly magnificent creatures to dive and snorkel with. A very small percentage of turtlets survive to reproduce (takes about 15 years then they can live to over 100) and with human predation (one can find eggs in the local markets - some benighted souls think these, as well as swiftlet nests, shark fins and rhino horns, have magical properties) they remain threatened.
Wednesday
Spent a very pleasant 4 days in front of Sandakan Yacht Club at the mouth of Sandakan River near the city of... you know. Beautiful club, the oldest in Borneo, very friendly, active members (mostly Chinese Malay). They're only mildly embarrassed that there isn't a single yacht. They threw a party first night with food and karaoke and despite a lifelong desire to avoid that particular form of entertainment had a great time singing, dancing and, with nearly everyone else, getting absolutely stinko. Third night (after a bit of recovery) crew of Australian Anthem (19 meter (62 foot) Canadian built) hosted a party after which the Commodore, being shuttled to shore, had to be rescue after falling from our dink into the river. Never in the history of human celebration have so many drunk so much with no spew.
Thursday
This boring crap has gone on way too long. The Kinabatangan River has killer creature features, but rather than put everyone to sleep with 4 days of details search Youtube for Kinabatangan, find a National Geographic special where Richard Attenborough gives a narrative fraught with tension and danger or watch an old Tarzan movie. We're crazy, but not Johnny Weismuller and not stupid so we refrained from jumping into the river in a loin cloth with knife in hand to battle a croc.
Jack