Travelling Hopefully - The Neglectful Parent Edition

We were met at Sandakan airport by our guide who was charged with getting us within camera range of sea turtles without too much psychological damage on either side.  This would entail a journey to a small island off the coast as apparently the turtles don't make house calls.

First though we stopped at the Sandakan Four Seasons to pick up a pair of New Zealanders (who like most New Zealanders live in Sydney) and then we stopped around the corner to pick up the New Zealander's washing.  With both the New Zealanders and their washing secured we transferred to what seemed like a rather small boat for a sea cruise and headed across the azure water to Turtle Island.

Malaysia seems to be taking its anti-piracy duties seriously, the harbour at Sandakan was full of enough coast guard vessels to have their own war and a seriously  heavy duty military helicopter roamed the skies.  There were also police armed with automatic rifles on the island itself although whether they were there to protect us from pirates or the turtles from us was left open.  One thing I do know, the rule about being off the beach by 6pm so the turtles could come ashore unmolested was scrupulously obeyed.

The turtles are under threat not just because they insist on eating plastic and getting caught in fishing nets (stupid bastards) but also because turtle eggs are apparently delicious and are incredibly nutritious.  Also, like most exotic, difficult to source foodstuffs they're supposed to be an aphrodisiac.  If chickens were discovered to be an aphrodisiac then within a month there would only be nine left and they'd live on a mountain top in Bolivia.  The island is an attempt to bolster sea turtle numbers.  It has been a laying spot since time immemorial, now it is an official turtle hatchery.  The female turtles come ashore, lay their eggs and, literally immediately, a ranger scoops them up and transplants them to a hatchery where they can hatch without interference from predators.  This guarantees the maximum number of incredibly cute baby turtles which are then released into the sea where most of them die almost immediately.

I suspect that much of the reason for the turtles endangerment comes down to bad parenting.  The father loses interest immediately after conception (I know, big surprise) and the mother considers her parenting role complete if she dumps her eggs into the nearest convenient hole in the ground and then leaves.  If that was the human method of child rearing we'd be endangered too.

In their defence the sea turtles have chosen a spectacular venue to be neglectful parents in.  A forty minute boat ride out of Sandakan into the Sulu Sea brought us to an island of almost stereotypical tropical island beauty.  Coral, white sand, translucent water, abundant fish and palm trees; it's all there.  And somewhere in the midst of all this beauty a bunch of armoured dinosaur contemporaries are tossing eggs into holes in the sand under the impression that this is all they need to do to propagate their species.  After which a group of unreasonably concerned humans run around trying to prove them right.  Talk about rewarding bad behaviour.