Kinabatangan River, Sabah – December 2009

The Rhinoceros Hornbill

The Buffy Fish Owl

The Greater Egret

Ping, Wayne, and Leo’s nephew, Jeremy, joined us to sail north from Kota Kinabalu, over the top end of Sabah to the mouth of the Kinabatangan River. Which is just south of Sandakan.

It was a slow sail north, close haul, (winds from the front of the boat) all the way to the top end of Sabah. Battling with winds that were 20+ knots, Wayne was horizontal most days, only reviving when we anchored each night. Although, some of the anchorages were only slightly better than when we were sailing.

We all breathed a sigh of relief once we rounded the top end of Sabah, a lovely beam reach to Sandakan. We motored to the north entrance of the Kinabantangan River, and touched the bottom several times as the depth was never more than 1.5 to 1.8 meters. Normally, we need over 1.8m to clear the bottom, but the soft mud was a blessing, and allowed us to carry on even in depths of only 1.5 m, and occasionally 1.3m. That’s when we would touch the bottom, though just momentarily.

It was awesome entering the massive Kinabantangan River, the river was calm and glassy, and even Wayne could read while we motored upriver. The trees by the banks were full of wild life. Egrets, hornbills, orangutans, proboscis monkeys, eagles, kingfishers, owls……. The antics of the proboscis monkeys were very entertaining. One evening we anchored just beneath a tree with a large family of proboscis monkeys. It was fun watching them play, eat and sleep. Waking up in the morning gave us another exciting view of the monkeys, as they too wake up with the sunrise.

Proboscis Monkeys leaping

One night a local guide took us up the river and we saw sleeping kingfishers, owls, crocodiles and some small mouse deer. The highlight was the sleeping kingfishers. Even with the torches shining at them, they didn’t move and we could get really close to them. In fact, we’d get as close as the next branch over, being only a metre or two away from the sleeping birds.

Sleeping Stork-billed Kingfishers

Ping, Wayne and Jeremy left us from the little village along the Kinatangan by road, and traveled overland back to Sandakan. Leo and I motored down the river and then sailed up the coast. Farewell to a lovely calm interlude where we could see monkeys and birds roam freely, which may not last for long, as the oil palm estates are encroaching on their territory.

The photographs were taken by Jeremy.