Shades of White Water Rafting!

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As if I need reminding that water can be a rough place to travel over!

The last two days we have traveled over to some small islands off the coast of Kota Kinabulu, they looked lovely, beautiful white sand beaches, forestation covering the rest of the island and not too much by way of shops. The first island, Manukan was small and beautiful, we found a place under the trees to sit right on the beach and spent the day swimming, snorkelling, reading and walking around the island. It was lovely!
The second island trip started with a slightly rough crossing, not helped by the boatman seeming to enjoy soaking his passengers. The island was quite big so w walked around it first and saw two quite incredible monitor lizards on the path. They were about 1m long and I gather they spit really foul phlegm at you which is full of incredible bugs. Not a creature I want crawling in my cabin! We spent the rest of the day snorkelling etc, talking to lots of other travelers and picking up tips on places to go to etc.
as th afternoon progressed, the water got rougher.... and we had the same boatman to take us back to KK, this time with his pirate friend - dressed in tight trouser and a beanie hat pulled on his head to make him look like a pirate, and no shirt. The first local man I have seen without a shirt. Instead of going directly back to KK we called in at three other islands. Well to say that I was looking for the "Oh s**t" rope is an understatement!! The oat was flat bottomed and really slammed down onto the water when we dropped down into the ruts of the waves (I don't know the proper word for that!) The pirate stood at th frot of the boat to help with the steering and apart from my feeling that we wre going to capsize any moment all went well until the boat stopped in the midde of the sea. Thank goodness a man on the boat said rather loudly tht they were just swapping over petrol tanks - whilst smoking at the same time mind you!! Then the pirate took over and we went even faster, Shirley thought the first man was worried by the waves, but pirate man seemed a better 'driver' and we finally reached the shore - absoutely soaked, certainly shaking and in my case seeing boats turning over in my mind. I shall remember to look very carefully at the forecast before going on water again! I am a landlubber by nature i think!
Meanwhile some piccies for you.

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Photos

Monitor Lizard
We almost missed seeing this one - he was so well camouflaged

One cool man!
This the life!!

Cabin in the Rainforest
This is the cabin we stayed in.

Ballerina fungus
This was incredible and looked ike something that should be on a young girl's dressing table. But I suspect it would smell as it rotted!

Comments

[John Bown]

Adrenaline Rules OK??
Hi Lizzie-P. Boat trip sounds interesting?? That orang utang is now my firm hero- 'the man' as the young ones would say. Pleny more adventures to come. John B

[w1]

Sailing
Dont you fancy a week sailing in the med? H1 will be in charge of the boat.....

[Lizzie P]

Hah!
The latest silly idea is to take part in their regatta....

[Lizzie P]

One cool dude.
He is the main man in this area certainly, we ar hoping to find some of his relatives next week.

[Tami]

That lizard is gigantic compared to the ones we saw in Florida! What a boat ride! It's too bad you don't have a video camera.