Residents of Roach Reef

As I had been thinking of how to make my balcony a place for me to sit & relax, I went out & got the pergola to trellis my plants & bought a set of wooden garden table/chairs set. On it sits a beautiful tealight & occasionally, my computer. In the tranquility of my quiet time, I sit there amongst my sweet, herbal-scented philodendron & orchids & the jungle to exemplify the feature of my trip to Sabah.

When we got to Roach Reef, it was in the midst of repairs. Two chalets had been washed away by high tide & the generator room & the floor of the staff quarters went under too. That made me wonder what kind of life apart from human beings & some insects, are found on this man-made island on a reef. I set out to find LIFE. And life did I find…..hermit crabs that have outgrown their homes! The poor creature must have not been able to find a bigger shell to move into due to the elevated island & no water that washes in & out. What on earth am I going to do to help the residents of Roach Reef???

I asked Jasmine & Ambrose, our boatman, to find all the shells that we could possibly do & place it in a corner before we gather the hermits there. Every dive became a mission-oriented dive. Whatever we could salvage, we did. Day & night. We gathered more than 40 shells of various sizes. We placed them at the Hermit Corner, took some bread & Loackers to feed the hungry crabs. The next few days proved our mission fruitful. Several hermits actually exchanged shells!!! Our excitement couldn’t be contained & I had to devise a way to protect this site from the unwitting giant steps of humans that would crush them & greedy shell collectors (we were the only guests…..) so I wrote a message on the water container stationed beside it……

During surface interval, the bench that’s situated right outside the restaurant had become our ‘hangout.’ We would watch the Hermit Corner while sipping Sabah Tea & munching on Elli’s delicious goreng pisang.
The hermits weren’t the only residents, there was a stowaway on a drift wood…..a monitor lizard! It would scout the edge of the island for crabs & such & upon seeing anyone approaching, it will nose dive into the sea! Kind of look like a suicide if you didn’t know it could swim as well as it moves on land.