14-Jun-2004 --

I was on way my to climb Mount Kinabalu, and whilst staying overnite in Kota Kinabalu, it occurred to me that I could probably nearly see the confluence at 6°N 116°E from the 14th floor of my hotel room. Whats more, there was a whole line a propestive boats lined up on the beach, to take me out me out there.

Early next morning, after a quick stroll along the water front I found a boat that was willing to take me out 8km, just to "take some photos" and come back. In my broken Malay (actually I was speaking Indonesian, but that generally works just as good), I found it difficult to explain to them what I really intended to do, and after a bit of haggling, we arrived at a price of 120 ringgit for the one hour trip. I'm certain they still cant understand why a crazy Matsalleh (white man) wanted to take a photo of his GPS in the middle of the ocean, but they got their money we're both happy.

Anyway, nothing much exciting happened, we just sailed out there at a grand speed of 16 km/hr, I took my photos and came back.

The confluence is just to the south of Gaya Island. A smaller Island called Sapi Island is actually closer, and in the photo of the conflence, it can be seen in the foreground as the first small hill on the left. All the other hills in the background belong to Gaya Island.

Looking north, we see the western sides of Sapi and Gaya Islands. Looking west, we simply get a good view of the South China Sea. Looking south, we see Manukan Island with the Sabah mainland in the background, and looking east we see Gaya Island with the Sabah mainland far in the backgound again.

The peak far in the distance of the east photo is Mt Kinabalu, with an elevation of 4095 metres. Checking the map, the peak of Kinabalu should have an azimuth of about N 82°E from this confluence, so I wasnt pointing my camera exactly east, but east direction should be covered in this photo. I think I was pointing at the sun thinking this would be exactly east. The city of Kota Kinabalu can be seen on the right side of this photo, but it is not obvious at the zoom setting of the photo. The mainland is about 8.4 kilometres distant. The final photo is a zoom in view of Mt Kinabalu, extracted from the east photo.

In the sea, but with a good view of land.