Sulu Sea Islands
Wednesday 6th March
After leaving Sandakan on Monday, we sailed in small choppy waves to Silingaan Island, a sandy island to which the turtles come to lay their eggs. Being a small resort there was no way they were going to let us come in to watch the egg laying, unfortunately. We were lucky enough to see a pair rise out of the water while mating, male clinging to the female with his flippers. Whooshing sounds all around the boat as the turtles came up for air indicated there must be numerous around. We contented ourselves with having Peking Duck, we had bought from the market, and more flagon red wine on Sea Glass while the girls had a great time playing games in their mainsail bag.
Lankayan Island was our next stop and luckily had a more friendly resort on it. For a fee, we could snorkel and play on the beach. Smorgasbord dinner in the restaurant was delicious in a beautiful wooden building over the water. Lounging in comfy sofas, watching the sunset and listening to the waves with a drink was very relaxing indeed. The children loved the huge sofas on the deck, the swinging chairs and the upstairs room with TV to play their games in. Hatty said “I loved swinging in the chairs and playing on the jetty in the comfy sofas.”
The snorkelling was fabulous with an amazing variety of coral in masses of shapes and colours and some enormous fish, unlike anything we have seen here. A huge trigger fish hovered in the current crunching coral and three enormous cuttlefish waved their fins and changed colour when we got too close. Brightly coloured Parrot fish and Wrasse cruised past feasting on coral on the way, while many small fish darted under the table coral for protection. Jon, from Sea Glass, even saw some Reef Sharks, indicating a healthier reef system.
The turtle museum was interesting with shells to study, unhatched babies in jars to inspect and a model of their journey digging out of the eggs, through the sand to the light of day, sometimes taking up to five days. Preserved sharks and other sea creatures took the girls interest.
Saturday 9th March
After a rocky night at anchor on Wednesday, we sailed, yes actually sailed, to Billean Island, also in the Sugud Marine Park. We've had fun exploring there, a great example of how coral competes for space on the reef, being very well covered. A Scorpion fish camouflaged itself in the brown coral identical in colouring, Sea urchin Echinometra sheltered nearby and masses of tiny fish schooled above the reef ready to dart in for protection. A huge dark red Spinecheek anemonefish darted at us to protect its territory while a small Blue Cleaner Wrasse cleaned a blissed out fish with its mouth wide open. Small yellow Eight-banded Butterflyfish pecked at the coral and Long Toms hung with their long noses facing the current.
The afternoon challenge with the Sea Glass boys was to build the necessities for survival when wrecked on the beach. Thankfully a few ropes washed up with them! They had fun building a shelter with bamboo washed up on the beach, building a fire and learning how to lash a raft together. It did float but Phoebe’s toes would have been nibbled off when the lashing loosened. Lots of fun, good for team work and plenty of room for improvement on the knotting skills! Phoebe said “I liked making a raft and a little hut out of sticks and big branches. We needed to lash it more tightly and go all the way down the logs. We could have put smaller sticks and leaves in the cracks so not much water would come through.”
The girls enjoyed a trip to a coral cay near Tigabu (06:52.809N 117:28.616E) island, where we anchored tonight, and spent hours building sand castles and playing games. Having a whole island, although very small, to ourselves was lovely. I enjoyed watching a Moray Eel curled up in a small hole in the yellow coral like cauliflowers, spending its day in safety until its nightly feeding excursions. Small fish darted in and out of the corals protection while small painted Wrasses were so perfect they looked like a painting! Shallow areas were well covered and preserved but deeper areas, as usual, were wrecked from dynamiting or cyanide. Hatty said "I enjoyed digging, building sand castles and play cooking on the small, sandy sand bar where I found a colourful dead cuttlefish, like we saw snorkelling, washed up on the beach."
There have been some disputes nearby between Malaysia and the Philippines over islands, which have been in the news. We have been fine but have seen plenty of soldiers with machine guns and police and naval boats speeding around.