After our brilliant river cruise we travelled back to Sandakan for our next trip to Pulau Selingaan also known as Turtle Island National Park.

The island is 40km north of Sandakan in the Sulu Sea off Sabah's east coast. The main attraction of Selingaan are the turtles which come ashore each evening to lay their eggs. Selingaan island was the site of the first turtle hatchery in Malaysia in 1966. Both the Green Turtle and the Hawksbill Turtle land on this island.

Our journey to the island was via boat which speedily took us through a mangrove river and then out into the Sulu Sea. The journey took about an hour. When we arrived we were taken to our accomodation again chalet style and told that we would wait for the turtles to come ashore after dinner. This could be anytime between 7.30pm and 6am the following morning.

Luckily one turtle came ashore and was laying eggs at approx 9pm. We were called down to the beach and we could see a huge Green turtle laying eggs over a large hole in the sand. The eggs were the size of ping pong balls and overall she laid 82. The turtle covered the eggs with sand using her hind flippers and rested on the beach before returning to the Sea after about 2 hours. The National Park Ranger then collected all the eggs in a bucket so that they could be transferred to the hatchery.The Rangers carefully transplanted the turtle eggs into a hole approx 75cm deep. The hole was then covered with sand and surrounded by wire mesh to protect the eggs from theft by Monitor Lizards and rats. The eggs were left to incubate for approx 50-60 days. After this time, the hatchlings will dig their way out of the nest and one of the Rangers will release the newborn turtles to sea.

After this process we were taken down to the sea where one Ranger released the latest hatchlings. It was amazing to see them waddle into the water tripping over one another.

Hopefully these hatchlings will survive. It is said if they do and they are female they will remember where they were born and come back to lay eggs in the same place themselves one day!

Next stop Kota Kinabala!