Puurrrple turrrtlesssss

My two days in the jungle were intense and very exciting, so have no time to write about it now, although photos are up.

Before heading to Turtle Island, we had a night in Sandakan, Sabah's second largest city.

I had a great Sunday afternoon there. Spent a few hours reading the local paper, went for a much needed haircut and chilled in front of the TV - is was just like a typical Sunday back at home, except without live football.

In the late afternoon, we went to visit the War Memorial, which was dedicated to the thousands of Australians and Brits who lost there lives at the hands of the Japanese during WW2, either at the POW camp (where the War Memorial now sits), or along one of the three Death Marches to Ranau, more than 200km away. Of approximately 2,400 POWs, only 6 survived. We then paid a visit to the Buddhist temple that sits on top of a hill overlooking the bay and Sulu Sea.

In the evening, we had dinner along the waterfront. Everyone went off to bed, but I stayed out a little longer to watch some footy. I headed back at 1am, my earliest night in a while.



The following morning, we spent an hour on a speedboat heading to Turtle Island. As the island came into our view, you could see the stunning palm trees and pristine beach. We pretty much had the beach to ourselves as they limit the number of visitors on the island per day to minimise disruption to the green and hawkbill turtles that come onto the beach at night to nest.



I had a great afternoon chilling in the sea on my tube, jumping into the sea off rocks, and playing 'water cricket'. As Scotland and I headed back to our rooms, we saw a baby turtle waddle into the water - great sight.



Before dinner, we spent a little time checking out the exhibition they have as well as a short documentary video on the turtles. During dinner we were alerted by the ranger that a green turtle had come onto the beach to nest. We all headed out quickly to see the spectacle. The green turtle had dug itself a nest about 30cm deep into the sand above the level of high tide. We saw each egg coming out - they looked like mini scotch eggs, but a little more gooey. The turtle's shell was more than 1m long and 80cm wide - the ranger measured it to enable it to identify and monitor the turtle in the future. The green turtle then thought it was burying the eggs under the sand, unaware that the ranger had removed them as they have a much better chance of survival in one of the islands' hatcheries. We saw the ranger bury the eggs in the hatchery and then saw him release 50 baby turtles, only 2 days old, into the sea - they have a 1-2% chance of survival. When they headed away back inland, we had to pick them up from the shell and point them in the right direction - it was quite amazing to seem them so close up. Throughout, we didn't use any cameras to protect the turtles from exposure to direct light.



We then headed back to our chalets for more Uno, which was later accompanied by lots of burping and farting (thanks to Scotland, Han and me) - not nice really, but reminded me of school:)

Eeveryone was taking the mick out of Jackie in the way she said 'turtles' with her strong Scottish accent - the way she said 'purple turtles' was even more amusing.