We were thrilled to see on the chart that there’s a big marine reserve shared by the Philippines and Malaysia just off the coast of Sabah north of Sandakan. We read that you can get tickets to sail to one of the islands, but couldn’t find out how when we were in Sandakan. Other cruisers after us tried harder and still couldn’t find a way to get permission to sail there. Apparently the island’s only open to tourists who are taken there by boat and spend the night–reports say they get to take flashlit selfies with turtles who are trying to lay their eggs in peace and quiet. If so, not our cup of tea anyway…
In the end we only sailed through the Sabah turtle island reserve and saw neither turtles, nor birds or any other wildlife (though the islands look nice with shrubs instead of palm tree plantations). What we did see was plenty of floating rubbish and 60 fishing boats at one glance! Yes, you’re reading this right, not 60 counted throughout the day, but looking from horizon to horizon…
We stopped at Liparan, which is an island just outside the nature reserve that also has a protected beach for turtles and a warden. We met friendly locals, shy, but interested kids, a whole gang of village dogs who accompanied us on a beach walk, tons of plastic trash, but no turtle tracks.
