Day 54

March 17, 2019 – Komodo, Indonesia

We arrived at 7 am. Komodo Island is a National Park and only those with a tour can leave the ship.

It is a tender port and after much confusion we finally got aboard a tender. We were with the Captain and 4 other passengers. Everyone else was already ashore. We met up with our guide and naturalist at about 9:05. Indonesian law requires a guide and/or naturalist in front of the group and behind the group. Today we are searching for the Komodo dragon.

Each guide carries a long stick with a “Y” at the end. This is used to control the dragons if need be.

Our first encounter with a dragon was at one of the watering holes. The dragons are large creatures from the lizard family. Dragons can get as large as 10 ft long and weigh up to 150 lbs. These are male dragons. Females have a smaller head. The dragons do have a venomous bite.

Females lay as many as 20 eggs in nests such as this mound in the back of the photo. The eggs hatch in April after about 8 months. The young dragons are very vulnerable to predators and live in trees. Maturation takes 8 to 9 years.

The dragons dominate the ecosystem here and subsist on a diet of small mammals and Timor deer. They have been known to attack humans.

We continued on a trail that took us to an overlook.

Indonesia is made up of more than 17,000 islands. A similar view was had no matter which direction one looked.

There are more than 700 languages spoken in Indonesia. Our guides spoke Bahasa to each other which is one of the official languages. One of them spent the night on the island as he lives 4 hours away.

The morning on Komodo came to an end and we boarded this craft for our next stop.

Pink Beach was our destination. More snorkeling.

It wasn’t the great barrier reef but there were still plenty of things to see. I did take a lot of underwater video but upload speed on the ship is painfully slow.

We spent about two hours on pink beach and headed back to our wooden craft for lunch and a trip back to Komodo Island. We were each given handmade scarves from Capt. Leo and his family. The craft appeared to something they lived on. At least three rooms with bunks and 3 AC compressors aboard. He asked for our recommendations on trip advisor as this is his only means of advertising.

Back on Komodo we grabbed the next tender to the ship. A day like this can be exhausting when you are used to eating, reading and napping. We called it an early night. We have a long day planned for Bali tomorrow.