Lankayan Island is a very small tropical coral resort island in the Sulu Sea

Sulu Sea

The Sulu Sea is a body of water in the southwestern area of the Philippines, separated from the South China Sea in the northwest by Palawan and from the Celebes Sea in the southeast by the Sulu Archipelago. Borneo is found to the southwest and Visayas to the northeast.Sulu Sea contains a number of...

, northwest of the island of Borneo

Borneo

Borneo is the third largest island in the world and is located north of Java Island, Indonesia, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia....

, in the state of Sabah

Sabah

Sabah is one of 13 member states of Malaysia. It is located on the northern portion of the island of Borneo. It is the second largest state in the country after Sarawak, which it borders on its southwest. It also shares a border with the province of East Kalimantan of Indonesia in the south...

, in Malaysia, and 15 km from Sandakan

Sandakan

Sandakan is the second-largest city in Sabah, East Malaysia, on the north-eastern coast of Borneo. It is located on the east coast of the island and it is the administrative centre of Sandakan Division and was the former capital of British North Borneo...

.
Lankayan Island has many species of attractive flora and fauna. The only resort on the island, Lankayan Island Dive Resort, was built in 1997. Divers are attracted by myriad macro marine life, coral and sunken wrecks. Lankayan Island is known for its whale shark

Whale shark

The whale shark, Rhincodon typus, is a slow-moving filter feeding shark, the largest extant fish species. The largest confirmed individual had a length of and a weight of more than , but unconfirmed claims report considerably larger whale sharks...

 sightings.

The fauna that inhabit the waters of the island include scads, yellow tail barracudas

Barracuda

The barracuda is a ray-finned fish known for its large size and fearsome appearance. Its body is long, fairly compressed, and covered with small, smooth scales. Some species could reach up to 1.8m in length and 30 cm in width...

, and jacks

Carangidae

Carangidae is a family of fish which includes the jacks, pompanos, jack mackerels, and scads.They are marine fish found in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans...

. Other fauna include blacktip shark

Blacktip shark

The blacktip shark is a species of requiem shark, family Carcharhinidae. It is common to coastal tropical and subtropical waters around the world, including brackish habitats. Genetic analyses have revealed substantial variation within this species, with populations from the western Atlantic Ocean...

s, giant clam

Giant clam

The giant clam, Tridacna gigas , is the largest living bivalve mollusc. T. gigas is one of the most endangered clam species. It was mentioned as early as 1825 in scientific reports...

s, claw anemone fishes, decorator and spider crab

Spider crab

The term spider crab can refer to various species of crab in the family Majidae. See crab spider for spiders of the Thomisidae family.*Japanese spider crab , the largest living species of crab, found on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean*Libinia emarginata, the portly spider crab, a species of crab...

s, coral shrimps, nudibranch

Nudibranch

A nudibranch is a member of what is now a taxonomic clade, and what was previously a suborder, of soft-bodied, marine gastropod mollusks which shed their shell after their larval stage. They are noted for their often extraordinary colors and striking forms...

s, prawn gobies, seahorse

Seahorse

Seahorses compose the fish genus Hippocampus within the family Syngnathidae, in order Syngnathiformes. Syngnathidae also includes the pipefishes. "Hippocampus" comes from the Ancient Greek hippos meaning "horse" and kampos meaning “sea monster”.There are nearly 50 species of seahorse...

s, ghost pipefish, flying gurnards, parrotfish

Parrotfish

Parrotfishes are a group of fishes that traditionally had been considered a family , but now often are considered a subfamily of the wrasses. They are found in relatively shallow tropical and subtropical oceans throughout the world, but with the largest species richness in the Indo-Pacific...

es, rays

Batoidea

Batoidea is a superorder of cartilaginous fish commonly known as rays and skates, containing more than 500 described species in thirteen families...

 and guitarfish

Guitarfish

The guitarfish are a family, Rhinobatidae, of rays. The guitarfish are known for an elongated body with a flattened head and trunk and small ray like wings. The combined range of the various species is tropical, subtropical and temperate waters worldwide. They often travel in large...

. The indigenous plants include casuarina

Casuarina

Casuarina is a genus of 17 species in the family Casuarinaceae, native to Australasia, southeast Asia, and islands of the western Pacific Ocean. It was once treated as the sole genus in the family, but has been split into three genera .They are evergreen shrubs and trees growing to 35 m tall...

 trees and pandan screwpine

Pandanus amaryllifolius

Pandanus amaryllifolius is a tropical plant in the screwpine genus which is known commonly as pandan and is used widely in Southeast Asian cooking as a flavoring. The plant is rare in the wild but is widely cultivated. It is an upright green plant with fan-shaped sprays of long, narrow, bladelike...

.

Green and hawksbill

Hawksbill turtle

The hawksbill sea turtle is a critically endangered sea turtle belonging to the family Cheloniidae. It is the only extant species in its genus. The species has a worldwide distribution, with Atlantic and Pacific subspecies. E. imbricata imbricata is the Atlantic subspecies, while E...

 sea turtles make this island a key nesting spot in the Sulu Sea. The turtles are banded by the local marine preserve staff, the eggs are retrieved and counted, and then reburied in a fenced off nursery area to prevent poaching and predation, and to assist in documenting turtle productivity. After hatching, the live birth count is recorded and then the young turtles are safely released to sea.
On 13 October 2003, Lankayan Island was declared part of the Sugud Islands Marine Conservation Area

Sugud Islands Marine Conservation Area

The Sugud Islands Marine Conservation Area or SIMCA is a Category II MPA in Beluran district in Sabah, Malaysia, comprising Lankayan Island, Billean, Tegaipil and surrounding waters...

 (SIMCA). As part of SIMCA, all resource harvesting (fishing etc.) will be prohibited by the state government of Sabah

Sabah

Sabah is one of 13 member states of Malaysia. It is located on the northern portion of the island of Borneo. It is the second largest state in the country after Sarawak, which it borders on its southwest. It also shares a border with the province of East Kalimantan of Indonesia in the south...

, Malaysia.

Getting There

The transfer to Lankayan is by speedboat departing from the Sandakan Yacht Club and takes about an hour and a half.

External links

• Lankayan Island Travel Information Official Website
• Lankayan: Paradise Under Threat Divehappy.com report on Lankayan's marine conservation efforts (June 2006)
• http://www.sabahtourism.com/sabah-malaysian-borneo/en/destination/30-lankayan-island/