"O God, thy sea is so great, and my boat is so small"

There are three men who spring to my mind presently, all very different in background, but each of whom has acknowledged in their lives the importance of boats in this world. Their insights have taken on great significance for me due to my recent experiences here in Borneo. The first man is John Rhodes Sturdy, movie writer of the early 20th century; the second is the existentialist philospher, Jean-Paul Sartre; and the third is Robbie Fowler. The three wise men.

My last few weeks in Sabah have been varied and bizarre. After scaling Mount Kinabalu, the reward for weary legs was volunteering with ranger Gabili on a trekking module, surveying orang-utan nests and completing small mammal surveys in the Sepilok rainforest on behalf of the centre. This was a hugely enjoyable 9 days, not least due to Gabili's bottomless knowledge of the forest and the undescribable privilege of spending every day (and some evenings) marching through the jungle, machete in hand, leech socks pulled high, sweat flattening my now ridiculously long and curly hair. Then there came the boats.

Boat 1 was from Semporna to Mabul, an island off the east coast of Sabah where divers come in their droves to swim among turtles and sharks and wait for their government permits for Sipidan, one of the best dive sites in the world. A handful of volunteers made the trip for a long weekend, envisaging a relaxing break before our final respective volunteering placements. There were two problems with this. Firstly, on stepping foot on Mabul island we were welcomed by a tropical thunderstorm which did not stop for three days straight. The second problem, was that the island was crawling with divers.

Wise man numero uno, Mr. Sturdy, believed that "A ship has a soul". There is no doubting this. The soul of a ship on which there are divers, however, seems to me to be shallow and annoying. I went diving before in Australia, to the annoyance of weeman and powerfresh (cumulative cynicism 'to the max'), so I have been inside the empty soul. The majority of divers are individually, like the English I suppose, interesting and friendly people, but put them in a group together and the 'junkie' attitude is fuelled. Snorkellers are 'losers' and you shouldn't really be hanging out with anyone who hasn't seen a [insert rare fish thing here]. I am so 'rad', I have had four beers and am getting up at 6am to dive with [insert rare fish thing here]. I got soul but I'm not a soldier.

Conversely, look at Sepilok as Boat 2. A shining example of Sturdy's soulful ship. The rangers, the nurses and vets, the volunteers, the locals, the orang-utans, everyone taking turns at the rudder, always someone to help bail water, steadily sailing through the choppy waters of conservation, rehabilitation and tourism. They gave us a fantastic send-off, music and dancing, Malay cuisine and heartfelt thanks for what was no doubt often a useless contribution but which I would like to think was sometimes essential help. I will definitely miss being in that boat.

My final volunteering module was not at Sepilok, but at the Nature Interpretation Centre of Shangri-La Rasa Ria hotel on the outskirts of Kota Kinabalu. Completely different to the orang-utan sanctuary at Sepilok, this was a five star resort with relatively few orang-utans who I felt lived there largely to entertain tourists rather than to be rehabilitated. I had worked in Sepilok with Selamat, who had spent part of his youth at Rasa Ria and was now a fantastically confident and cheeky orang-utan so I knew the NIC was a necessary and reversable evil in gathering funds for Sepilok from rich tourists and raising awareness internationally of the alarming plight of the orang-utans.

Besides from working with the orang-utans (and tortoise and tarzier) in the NIC, the best part about working in Rasa Ria was being part of the staff at a five star hotel. Daly always tells me that Heathrow isn't an airport, but a 'city in itself'. Well, Rasa Ria was the same, Gerard. All departments wore different uniforms and sat at their own separate tables in the canteen, never mingling, like an episode of 'scrubs'. Walking in the staff corridors under the hotel was exciting, to me like strolling around the bowels of a huge ship, Boat 3 if you will. It didn't take long for me to pick up on the pink clothes of the kids' Pongo club, the puce overalls of the engineers, the green combats of the rangers, the traditional Malay costumes of the front deskers and the functional blue uniforms of housekeeping. I was part of the ship crew in my uniform and the other ship workers were welcoming, if not wildly intrigued by the presence in the canteen of the orang-putih.

After our volunteer placement finished, it was to North Sabah. The tip of Borneo, looking out from Kudat to the Phillipines and Pulua Banggi. Banggi island took on a strange fascination with us. Not one local in Sepilok, not one ranger, had visited Banggi island. Nor had any locals when we arrived in Kudat despite it being the launching point for the island. The 'Lonely Planet's' very brief entry on Banggi just told us we would fall off the map. All we heard on our travels were the words 'black magic' and 'dangerous'. The only orang-putihs at the pier, we climbed into Boat 4. The Kudat Express to Banggi. The Banggi boys.

Banggi. Banggi. The very name still fascinates. No English. We weren't even sure if they spoke Malay. When we passed people in the main settlement on arrival, they covered their mouths and noses as if fearful of disease. No scuba junkies here. Children ran the opposite direction. Did they know I was a Catholic and presume I was involved with the priesthood? The Banggi fisherman looked straight into our souls. We looked at our feet.

We found a small pier from which to jump in and swim with the fish. The sun's full force beat down upon me and punished me as an Irishman without enough suncream should be punished. We chose our meals carefully between nasi goreng ayam (chicken fried rice) and mee goreng ayam (chicken friend noodles). Breakfast soon got boring. However, it was one evening, sitting playing oware no less, that we really got our hearts beating. Our room, a basic and dingy digs called the Bali Bonggi Resort, was in the middle of a route from onland nesting to the sea frequented by Mr. Laticauda colubrina. The Yellow Lipped Sea Krait. This thing is deadly. Highly toxic venom. Lethally poisonous. There is a silly myth that a sea snake cannot administer its poison if it does not bite you on the gooch between your thumb and forefinger. Scuba junkies are told to clench their fists when they dive. I clenched my fists. But what happens if it goes for my feet?

Just as I am not happy with sea snakes, I am not happy with the French at the minute, as they march on in a few days time to a reasonably comfortable group stage in South Africa. Thierry Henry's hand is still enveloped in the foulness of injustice, his eyes hollow and repulsive. But wise man number two was French and je suis d'accord quand il parle des bateaux. Jean-Paul Sartre remarked that "Only the guy who isn't rowing has time to rock the boat". How true. For Boat 5, it was a day trip to Pulua Maniaglian, a small uninhabited island about 20mins in a tiny fishing boat from Banggi. And guess what? The engine of the boat broke down. There was no rocking of the boat, and our orang-boat was doing his best, but it seems that everyone needs to be contributing and the orang-putihs certainly weren't doing that.

The problems of course, were that our next boat, from Banggi back to Borneo's Kudat was two hours off and that there were a few Laticauda colubrina's circling us. I felt stranded. I clenched my fists. After much consternation, however, we got the engine spluttering and spent an hour swimming and lying on the tropical beach of Maniaglian. With no shade and no shortage of other deadly animals out there, we made tracks for the bigger boat back to Kudat and semi-civilisation. We made it by the skin of our collective teeth. I am now back in Kota Kinabalu, and visited Tunku Abdul Rahman National Park, a 49 square kilometre group of islands and sea just offshore KK, comprising coral reefs and five islands. I went on Boat 6 to Mamutik island, one of the smaller islands with some good snorkelling. No sea snakes. No fist clenching. No-one rocking the boat.

And so we come to Robbie Fowler. Fourth highest goal-scorer in the history of the English Premier League. Mr. Liverpool, now of Perth Glory FC. "It sounds mercenary and it smacks of rats leaving the sinking ship. But get real, when everyone is bailing out, you don't want to be the last man standing". He is right. Sometimes it is time to get off the boat. Sometimes the journey across the water must end. I cannot stay in Borneo forever.

Tomorrow I might go white water rafting. Boat 7. The Padas river in southern Sabah. One last time on a boat before taking Robbie's advice.