Fourteen turtles came to the island to lay eggs the night we were there. They only disturb the first turtle with tourists. Turtles are hard of hearing so we didn’t disrupt her, unless we turned our flashlights on. She was a green turtle, 1 1/2 yards long, and she laid 150 eggs (a large amount).

They also had some very cute baby turtles that had hatched that day. They were about 3 inches long and we got to hold them. They released the baby turtles on the beach because the turtles will return to the place where they were born to lay their eggs. The rangers held their flashlights out over the water because the turtles’ instinct to is head toward the moonlight. All the turtles made it into the water and out to sea despite being washed back up to shore several times by the strong tide.

Day 6

We took the boat back to Sandakan where we got on a land cruiser for a long ride (with at least an hour on a bumpy gravel road) out into the rain forest to see look for proboscis monkeys on our river cruise.

After the highway and a jolting gravel road, both with a view of palm plantations, we arrived at a dock and took a boat a little up river to our cabins where we’d be spending the night.

We went on a jungle trek a buffy fish owl came out to greet us even though it was afternoon. It followed us from tree to tree as we slogged through wild elephant tracks filled with water. We mostly saw evidence of animals which was okay with us. We saw wild boar tracks and a tree where a sun bear had clawed away the bark. We saw several horned spiders, a millipede about one inch in diameter, and more mosquitoes than we’ve ever seen.

In the late afternoon we went on a river cruise in search of proboscis monkeys, because they always eat dinner and sleep on the riverside. They are shy, so we never got that close, but we could see them through binoculars.

We also saw some beautiful birds—a pair of black birds with blue beaks and a bright red spot on their backs, a small kingfisher and oriental darters and hornbills from a distance. We saw a pair of mangrove snakes (black with orange rings) sleeping in bushes along the bank and a viper. There was a water monitor sleeping in a tree. Apparently these frightening creatures can climb trees until their own body weight makes them too heavy. Of course there were pig-tailed macaques who weren’t camera shy. (I don’t think they’re as cute as the long-tailed macaques at the Batu Caves.)

Day 7

The morning that we left the river, our boatman had saved a baby proboscis monkey that had fallen into the water. The main predator of the proboscis monkey is the crocodile because these monkeys spend so much time near the water and swim across the river regularly in search of food. The scared little blue-faced baby was lucky to be rescued and they said they would return him to his family. It’s unusual to see this kind of monkey so close.

We really lucked out with wildlife watching. At the orangutan rehabilitation center, we went out to the platform while the other tourists were still watching an informational film and a 5-6 year old female (orangutan) came right up to us and showed us around.