Our very early flight, which I reviewed previously, to Sandakan, was ultimately all in aid of being in town in time for the ferry to the first part of our real Borneo adventure; an overnight at Selingan Turtle Island, located roughly an hour by speedboat from downtown Sandakan.

The complexity and time-constraints of the entire trip meant that for our Borneo adventures, we actually booked a custom 4-day 3-night trip with Sepilok Tropical Wildlife Adventure, who I had chatted with and met back at WTM in London last year, and who I had found very reasonable and comprehensive last year.

After meeting and being collected at the airport by Ray, our intrepid and ever-enthusiastic tour guide who would be responsible for the next several days for keeping us on-track, getting us where we needed to be, and providing commentary all along the way, we were quickly whisked into town for breakfast, before heading on to the early morning speedboat to Turtle Island.

The speedboat – considering my dislike of high-speed boat trips, especially first thing in the morning – was quick, scenic and uneventful, and we quickly disembarked directly onto the beach.

A word of advice; do not bring bulky or heavy luggage, not necessarily because there is nowhere to put it on the boat or in your chalet, but because of the walking distance between the boat, reception, the chalet’s, and vice-versa. Thankfully we packed only small rucksacks and were so grateful we did.

Check-in was a very brief, quick affair, involving names being called out and keys being exchanged, along with brief descriptions on how to find the respective chalet. In our case, Ray did the needful for us and escorted us towards our chalet block.

Turtle Island, generally, as you would expect, is what would be best described as functional and basic, clearly designed around the main attraction – seeing turtles come to lay their eggs by night, and releasing hatchlings back into the ocean.

Consequently, chalets are housed in groups of four within a larger building. The rooms are basic, clean, air-conditioned, but I wouldn’t necessarily count on a hot shower whatsoever. Keep that in mind.

Meals are provided as part of the trip at the reception (by way of buffet, water, and a vending machine with soft drinks available for purchase), and after lunch, we set off to explore the absolutely beautiful beach and do some snorkelling.

Snorkel equipment can also be rented from a hut near the No.2 hatchery (pictured below), although we’d brought our own. After a brief downpour, during which we retreated back to our chalet for a nap, it was back to the beach for a few more hours of sun.

Needless to say, things got interesting not long after as they so often do on my trips. My Mother had – very bravely – joined us for the trip to Borneo, and returned to her chalet to find it completely flooded after a valve had given up the ghost, and the flood had spread to ours and the other two chalets. To give you an example of how bad a flood in one chalet can become, anything on the floor (e.g. a pair of shoes or a phone cable) in any of the four chalets in our building was now entirely soaked.

While the three of us found the funny side of the entire event and our subsequent evacuation, our chalet-mates didn’t; which to be honest, only made the whole thing even funnier.

Cue an urgent relocation to a new block of chalets, which I incidentally found to be slightly more upscale than our previous ones, and we re-settled – and I’ll confess, I tried the shower once again, but alas, it was still cold.

After dinner, it became – and will do for anyone visiting – a waiting game, for the first turtle to come ashore. Folks played on their phones, board games were passed around, and Vannesha had a go at teaching my Mother how to play scrabble while being filmed very intensively by another guest on a mobile phone. It was all somewhere between awkward and hilarious.

As the Scrabble game reached its inevitable un-dramatic conclusion (nobody could make any more words out of the awkward letters we had remaining), shouts from outside indicated the arrival of a turtle onto the shore and we were quickly assembled into a loosely arranged mob, everyone quickly stampeding in the dark down towards the beach and in the general direction of the red, low-level lighting.

Watching the turtle lay its eggs, and then cover up the nesting site, was quite an experience and it felt like it was all over so fast (even though it wasn’t).

I spent the much of the experience mesmerised; fascinated by having the chance to see it in-person but almost feeling a little guilty watching the poor thing, if I’m honest, in the midst of such an intensely private, and presumably stressful time.

The staff, and tour guides – including Ray – did a great job at keeping us informed and managing the crowd so that we caused minimal impact to the nesting turtle during and after it concluded, after which we were quickly shepherded back to the hatchery to see the freshly-laid eggs transferred for safety.

With the rain now pouring, it was back to the beach for the final activity of the evening; releasing hatchlings for their first foray into the ocean, done at night to ensure greater survival chances.

All in all, an amazing experience. We were sent to bed with strict instructions, due to the impending storm, to be at breakfast bright and early (6am), and ready to depart very soon thereafter.

You visit Turtle Island for the turtles, not the luxury or the peace, and we struggled to sleep peacefully through the night as the storm ravaged the island – with the sound of thunder cracking as if it was right next to us throughout the night. It was all an experience like no other.

How would we get on a boat so early the next morning in the midst of a storm? Well, we would – and I’ll talk more about it in my next post!