Tawau/Semporna - Day 4 (Pom Pom Island Resort - Mataking Reef Resort)
It rained cats and dogs with strong winds on our final day in Pom Pom Island Resort. Our chalet is quite a distance away from the restaurant, not to mention they did not provide any umbrella in our room. Ended up, we decided to skip breakfast. We packed our things and checked out around 11am. We left our luggage in front of the chalet and walked to the restaurant to return the room key.
Instead of fetching us back to Semporna Jetty, we requested them to fetch us to Mataking Reef Resort. We departed from Pom Pom Island around 11.40am and reach Mataking Island 15 minutes later. It's a smooth ride and along the way I saw flying fish jumping out from the ocean! Once we reach Mataking Island, Pom Pom Island Resort staff unloaded our luggage from the boat and bring it all the way to Mataking Reef Resort front desk. He even make sure everything is in order before he left.
Since it's still too early to check in, we left our luggage at the front desk and went for lunch. Their lunch starts from 12pm to 2pm and it's buffet style. Compared to Pom Pom Island Resort, the food here was heavenly. My partner loves their fish. It's big and fresh. Their chicken soto (a traditional Indonesian soup) tastes good too. The honeydew pudding is on the sweet side but it's nice. Overall we enjoyed our lunch very much.
We walked around the island after lunch since we can only check in at 2pm. Finally one of the resort staff, Mr. Lee gave us a short briefing before giving us the room key. We asked him about turtle nesting in Mataking Island and he told us that they just released 50 baby turtles to the sea yesterday. Sigh... seems that we're always unlucky when it comes to releasing baby turtles.
There's no afternoon tea time but the resort provides free flow of coffee, tea and biscuits at Simply Enak Restaurant. We explored 1/4 of the island and saw small Mataking Island or also known as Mataking Kecil from far. Mataking Island is connected to Mataking Kecil via a narrow sandbank which only appears during low tide. Earlier on, Mr Lee did brief us on the sandbank. He told us to check on the tide times at the front desk before crossing the sandbank. In the event if we really stranded at Mataking Kecil do not swim back to Mataking Island. Just give them a call and they will bring over a rescue boat.
Guests are allowed to snorkel nearby the beach from 7am to 5pm only. It's safe to swim because there's lifeguard on duty. However, guests must wear life jacket during all sea activities. Beware of stingray, sea urchin, lionfish and guests are not allowed to collect dead or alive marine life, stepping on coral and touching or chasing marine life. My partner went for snorkeling alone while I prefer to sit on the beach chair and enjoy the sea breeze. I just love sunset and each day is a new masterpiece.
We had our dinner at 7pm. I love their fried rice. It's tasty and flavourful. Whereas for my partner (the meat lover), loves their beef. I will not describe the food as amazing but it's definitely so much better compared to our dinner at Pom Pom Island Resort. After dinner I bumped into a white dog. The dog is so friendly and let me pat his head. He even lie down for a belly rub. Later we found out that the dog belongs to the army camp beside our resort. We felt safe staying at this resort because at night there's officers patrol around the island. There's few observation towers in the island as well. The police officer told us that they saw sea turtle laying its eggs and the nest is just beside their observation tower. Some nights they even saw baby turtles dash into the sea after they hatch. After a good chat with the police officer we walked back to our room. Just like Pom Pom Island, Mataking Island only has a coverage network for Celcom.
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