The Kinabatangan River
Simanderal
Michael Hughes and Ger White
Tue 21 Aug 2012 12:00
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After leaving Sandakan--where we attended the
annual remembrance service for the Australian and British soldiers who died in
the infamous Japanese PoW camp there---out of over 2000 prisoners only 6
survived---we set off up the Kinabatangan river--a massive river that goes into
the heart of Borneo and it's jungle rainforest.
Entry to the river was interesting--very
shallow but we had a complex series of waypoints for where the deeper
water could be found--we went over at high water and never had less than 2 feet
under our 7 foot keel---but no chance of seeing the bottom as the river runs
brown.
Once in the river, it is deep and easily
navigable--a wide strip of brown between the green forest jungle either side. We
went about 40 miles up the river, over a few days. That is as far as we could
go--to a village called Sukau--where there were overhead cables way too low
for our mast to go under.
But in that 40 miles we saw lots of
wildlife--birds, of course, and lots of monkeys, including many proboscis
monkeys with their pot bellies and large pendulous noses. And wild
elephants, 2 adults and 2 young, foraging in the trees beside the river--we
watched them from the safety of the boat about 20 yards away for about half an
hour. And snakes, but no crocs though we were told there were many. Not a nice
thought when we caught some vegetation in the prop and I wondered if I would
have to go down to clear it!! Thankfully a couple of 360s cleared it
out.
So quite an experience, and a change from the sea.
But we exited the river a couple of days ago--without going aground--and are now
back at the resort island of Langkayan after a lovely sail. Good snorkelling
this afternoon, and this evening we watched baby turtles hatching--climbing out
of their buried sand nests in the sanctuary, heading down the beach and swimming
away. Unlike the ones we watched in Trinidad, where very few made it to the
sea--most were picked off by dogs and vultures---these ones all made it to the
sea---no doubt to be eaten by fish!! They reckon only 1 in 1000 grows to
adulthood!
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