Simon at Sepilok

This afternoon four of us took a trip out with a local guy called Azme.
The village where he grew up is located on one of the many rivers that lead through mangrove forest out to sea. He is trying to design a trip that he can market to tourists so we were to be guinea pigs of sorts, although he has been taking people out on short trips as a hobby for a few years.
Elle, Becky and Nick went out with him last week but the engine of their boat broke down a little way into their trip. This time Nick, Vicky, Cath and I were collected by Azme for another try.

On arrival we had a quick look at how the village dry the rubber they have collected from the trees. The sap from about 100 trees is used for each "mat" and will take about a week to dry.

I noticed too that the village football pich had more grass than Stamford Bridge...

Off to the jetty and we found that we had 2 boats, so 2 of us got into each and then Cap'n Azme and one of his uncles cast off into some beautiful mangrove forest waterways.

However we were soon in trouble because at the first sharp bend the outboard engine completely fell off of Nick and Cath's boat - Azme had forgotten to tighten the securing bolts!! Doh!! Fortunately he was able to pull the engine up from the shallow river bottom by means of the still-attached fuel line.
All attempts to restart it failed of course, suffice to say we had a "flooded" engine on our hands!
So Azme decided that we would proceed with just one boat and his uncle could paddle the other one back home.

Our destination today was to be an island just off the coast where Azme said we could spend some time swimming. I think it's fair to say that all four of us had pictured in our minds a little tropical paradise with sandy beach and maybe a few coconut palms swaying gently in the breeze.
As we headed away from the river estuary and out to sea we could see a large island off in the distance. Ah that must be it we thought.

Errr, not quite...

After 15 minutes Azme said "there is our island". I suddenly realised it wasn't quite as we'd imagined...
It was maybe 30 feet long and about 4 feet wide, made up totally of broken coral. I think even Robinson Crusoe would have struggled to hang a hammock here, LOL!!!!



But we beached the boat (which itself took up a quarter of the island) and proceeded to have a swim...



That was very refreshing of course, the slope off was very gentle and we could feel sand underfoot too. Azme explained that the tide were very high today, hence the lack of space! He had named it Michael Finland Island after the first Orang Puti that he taken there a few years back.

Soon it was time to head back, past many waterside houses where everyone waved to us and the children demonstrated their best acrobatic diving techniques.



A lovely way to spend an afternoon...

Back home we chatted about the trip to the others and then went with a few people for a quick Carlsberg at the Banana Cafe (in the nearby Jungle Resort) then it was time for bed. Work starts again in the morning but that's cool, over here i look forward to being at work!