Borneo ACT Project – Day 3
Ahoy there!
We’ve got the wind in our sails, the clean fresh sea air on our face and the magical sounds of the waves lightly crashing against the aluminum hull of Panagaea. I must say I’m extremely happy and excited at the moment, along with the other Young Explorers who seem to be enjoying the gentle side-to-side motion of the boat as it rises up and over another swell.
Yesterday afternoon myself and the other YEP’s went for a little ticky-tour around the town of Kota Kinabula (also known as; K.K), we visited the local markets and stocked up on our supply of ‘’private collections’’ as Mike calls them, these private collections usually contain; chocolate, cookies, noodles, lollies, coke and if I continued there would be no room on this page for the rest of the blog. Once returning from K.K the YEP’s had another idea for a place to sleep this was on blow-up mattress on the fore deck of the boat, we had a lovely night’s sleep under the stars, just thinking and appreciating where we were and the journey we were about to embark on.
Beeeeeeeeep, beeeeeeep, beeeeeeeep, the screaming sound of the horn, scares the living day-lights out of me and I wake up in a complete and total shock to where this horrific noise is coming from! I release it was Mike letting it off to wake up the local Malays who were meant to at the fuel barge by 5 am sharp it was now 5:20 and the entire town was getting woken up. Shortly after, we had a team of 5 Malays fuelling up Pangaea and everyone was happy.
We set off at 7:30 am from Kota-Kinabula harbor bound for Langkayan Island which is on the North-East side of Sabah. New challenges were yet to face us as for most of us this was our first time sailing the Pangaea. We work together as a team to haul the sails up using the guidance of the Pangaea crew and we managed to haul the Main Sail up in 8 minutes which is titled to be ‘’slow’’. The Pangaea crew took us through the different steps of what you have to while on watch, we checked through the engine room, the electronic systems of running the boat, GPS, radar, navigation charts, auto-pilot and the log book and the general rules of what to do and what not to do whilst on watch.
As we sailed along we were given an observation task to look and identify what type of waste was drifting on the ocean surface, for example; bottles, plastic wrappers/bags, paper and general litter, and we were then to record the amount and the distance from shore it was, also we had to identify and record different types of fauna and flora we spotted along the way.
Whilst at Langkayan we will most likely undertake reef dives and record data about the conditions of the reef.
Just being on this project for 3 days I have learnt many new and interesting ideas and facts and now strongly believe in this quote that ‘’everyday brings a new opportunity to learn’’.
Have Fun!
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