Wednesday 21 May Cukai

Cukai (pronounced Chukai) is a town up a river. Yesterday afternoon we entered over the sand bar at high water and followed the twists and turns until we reached a wide section of river, the town ahead of us and a mangrove island on our right. We were the last deep keel boat of the rally to arrive and took up our position at the end of the line in the deep(er) water backing on to the mangroves. Three shallow draft catamarans were able to anchor directly in front of the town.

Cukai river anchorage

Miri the elephant

two days old and ready to go

When will we see you again?

During the two days we were here we saw Macaque monkeys tripping through the trees, wild hogs snorting through the undergrowth and monitor lizards swimming along the bank. The ever present sea eagles soared above or landed on the sand banks at low tide but we didn't see kingfishers as others did.

Cukai has a wide range of wildlife as we discovered on our day out courtesy of the ministry of tourism. On our itinerary today was a visit to the local zoo – not large, but an interesting collection of animals many of which would have been local to Malaysia many years ago; a tiger, Asian lions, Asian elephants, tapirs, orang utans, a couple of species of deer and some birds. I liked the little elephant who was quite willing to be patted. Her mate, a small bull was less than friendly to visitors and had to be kept away. Apparently he enjoys filling his trunk with water and spraying the visitors leaning over the fence!

The highlight of the day for David and I was a stop at the turtle hatchery. Green and hawksbill turtles lay their eggs in the miles of sandy beach which front Cukai. In an effort to protect and increase the number of new turtles born, the eggs are collected from egg pits each morning and moved to a secure area away from predators (humans being enemy #1 as turtle eggs are considered a delicacy to some). Today we were fortunate to see, hold and release two day old green turtles. For something so small they have an astonishing strength in their front fins especially when they are close to the sea.

The statistic is one in one thousand hatched turtles survive to return to their birth place. Males never return. They spend their life at sea. Perhaps one of the twenty we released will be the lucky one to live to maturity and come back sometime when we are long gone.