Komodo Island

Photos

Videos

We had another long, calm and restful night last night. We'll need it to prepare for these next 3 hot, humid, active days in Indonesia. We had a big Sunday morning breakfast late in Terrace. We were up in Horizons killing time when we saw a small tug boat towing a big barge heaped with coal. That was strange.

In a few hours, I'll be aboard a tender sailing towards a piece of land primarily inhabited by swimming, tree-climbing, giant man-eating lizards. If traveling, facing your fears and expanding your horizons are good for personal growth, I expect to be a much better person this afternoon than I am now. Frankly, I am not really looking forward to it. I am dreading it, but I'll be happy once it is done.

I'll be back to finish this entry as a completely changed person and probably also a freshly showered one. More later. We are on group 3 of tender 1 of the ship's excursions here. This was one of our complimentary excursions. Oceania charged $149pp for this 1.5 hour trip. Of course, you can't go ashore at all here within booking either a ship's or private excursion. The private excursion people today got the first tender to go ashore. I don't know how else their day went but they were off before O's paid tours today.

We survived Komodo! The tender ride wasn't so bad. The dragons were scary, but I guess we've heard and seen so much about them by the time we got here that I really wasn't all that freaked out. Except when 2 got ready to fight, but then I was standing right behind one of the ranger/guide guys with the forked sticks. I already had both hands on his shoulders and he knew I was directly behind him when the 1st one stood up. He didn't like that and was gesturing down like to a dog at it. When the 2nd dragon started hissing at the 1st one, I felt him tense up and that was when I freaked out a little. He told our ranger to move us on along and around to the other side of the watering hole. But then the dragons lazed out again and the moment passed. So, we saw 8 dragons in all. One was less than a year old and up in a tree. They spend the first 2 to 3 years of their life up a tree in order to keep from being eaten by adult dragons. Evidently about 9 months after she lays eggs, she comes back to check and eat any young she can find. We saw a nest that they said had eggs in it now. It was a really big dirt mound that they said a bird made. The dragons use the mound when the bird is not using it. We saw one Timor deer and 2 wild pigs. It rained off and on and as it was time to leave, it opened up and poured. We were not expecting all the souvenir stalls at the end of our 1.5 hour hike. I had forgotten how aggressive the Indonesian sellers can be. I don't handle the press and yelling very well. But, we did get Clay a nice t-shirt and I got a patch! As the rain really opened up we got to see 2 last dragons, our 1 deer and a 2nd small wild pig. Others said that was when they saw a dragon on the beach, but we missed that huddled on the pier waiting to load the tender back to the ship. We got soaked through. As a woman on the tender said, I was already soaked from the inside out and now I'm soaked from the outside in. She had it exactly right. The good news is that the sun was gone and the wind kicked up at the same time, so we cooled right off. I am really glad we got the opportunity at last to do this!

We'll have dinner tonight in the GDR because I have seen 4 courses I can eat on the prospective menu they delivered last night. We'll see how many I actually get when we see the real menu. We have to wait for all the clothes hanging up around the cabin to dry before we can pack for our overnight in Bali tomorrow. I guess worst case scenario is we pack in the morning tomorrow since we don't expect to be docked until noon. If I don't post for a couple of days, don't worry. We may just be too busy ashore for 48 hours.

Photos

Videos