Turtle Island

'This is not an island paradise' said one of the guides as we came up onto the beach on Selingan island. Well, it actually does look like one. We'd come 40 miles north of Sandakan in the Sulu Sea, on a speed boat, so we were a little windswept, although Cliff can nap anywhere and managed a little snooze on the way.

We checked in and were directed to our room, one of six in a villa on the other side of the island - a whole three minutes walk away. We had a bit of a lie down until lunch and then headed for the beach because the real action doesn't take place until after dinner. The water was super clear and we did some snorkling, managing to see lots of colourful fish (one nipped my leg) and Liam and Cliff spotted a ray.

Later in the afternoon, just as I was about to head up for a shower, one of the rangers on the beach handed me his binoculars and said there was a turtle coming in. It turns out that she was right behind Cliff who was still snorkling and he hadn't realised. So I'm on the beach waving and saying 'it's behind you - turn around' and he thinks I'm saying 'get out'. After getting the okay from the rangers to get out a bit closer to her, we managed to swim out within about a metre. There were actually two and they were mating. They tolerated us for about ten minutes before they swam off. Incredible.

After dinner we played cheat, one of our favourite card games, with two lovely Australian girls Natalie and Kathy and learned that it's called BS where they come from. The deal is that after dinner everyone stays in the restaurant until we get the 'turtle time' call from the ranger. The call came about 10pm that a couple had made their way up the beach to lay their eggs. In the end there were fourteen Green Turtles laying that night. We were lucky as sometimes the call doesn't come until the early hours of the morning. When the time was right, we were led out onto the sand to witness the laying. Before that, the turtle is left alone to prepare her nest. 'Our' turtle ended up laying 119 eggs. These were then taken by the ranger and placed carefully in a hole he's prepared earlier, up in the conservation centre which is protected from predators; rats and lizards.

We were told that only about 10 percent of eggs hatch sucessfully in the wild without this intervention, whilst they improve the rate to about 60 percent here. Although I've since read that the success rate of 'natural' hatchings is much higher than 10 percent, so maybe we were told a bit of a fairy story to support the whole hatching programme. They can also influence the sex of the hatchling; shaded and therefore colder nests produce males and unshaded warmer nests produce females.

We then went down to the shoreline with the ranger to release about 50 hatchlings that had hatched that day. Even so, only 1 in a 1000 to 10,000 that do hatch and are released into the sea reach maturity, ie make it to 20 years old. It's tough being a turtle.