Back in the early 1980s, the famous ocean explorer Captain Jacques Yves
Cousteau and his team made their first visit to Sipadan Island, off the
coast of Borneo. They made a film about Sipadan, and one of the
highlights in that film was an eerie cave in which they found many bones
and skeletons of sea turtles.
Since it's a potentially dangerous dive, the Sipadan Turtle Cave is
restricted to experienced divers who have had appropriate training, and
it is essential to go with a guide who knows the terrain inside the
cave. The entrance to the cave is in the side of a limestone wall that
begins a few meters below the surface and plunges straight down to a
depth of about 600 meters. The mouth of the cave,
found at a depth of only 20 m, is small and
partly disguised by large soft corals.The famous turtle skeletons, are located in several of the cave's chambers. Some are no more than
disorderly piles of bones. Others
were more complete skeletons, with half-disintegrated carapaces, and
turtle skulls.
While Cousteau conjectured that old or sick turtles may have gone there intentionally to die, that notion has been replaced recently by a
more prosaic explanation: Turtles occasionally wander into the cave
system, perhaps to rest, or to hide from a predator, or maybe just out
of curiosity. Then they become lost in the dark, disorienting interior
of the cave. When they need to surface for a breath of air, they can't
find their way out, so they drown.
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| A dolphin skeleton lies amidst the turtle bones - LINK |
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