This meant that after several days of freedom in the jungle, Esper‘s crew had the ‘graveyard shift’ from 01:00 till dawn. It was our job to be on full alert for strange activity.

We were expected to wake up the other yachts and inform the patrol boats should we see signs of unusual movement on the water.

This time, instead of staying up together, we divided the shift in half: Jamie from 01:00 till 03:00, then Liz taking over till dawn. These times work for us as Jamie is a night owl and Liz an early bird.

Rounding the worst part of the passage on Sabah’s eastern coast, we headed towards the relative safety of Lahad Datu accompanied by a storm.

But the inclement weather wasn’t our only company, we began seeing more plastic in the water. And as we made our way closer towards the town, rainforest morphed into palm oil plantations.