Hunting Dragons by Camera
Trip Start
Oct 31, 2009
1
10
57
Trip End
Apr 28, 2010
Komodo National Park, West Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
At the bus station, our Perama bus was waiting to take us to Sengigi where the Komodo trip actually starts. On the way back we can take the boat directly from Sengigi but obviously they for some reason they have to give the cedomo mafia a chance to separate us from our money first.
After a short stop in Sengigi to pay for the trip and pick up our fellow passengers we headed off towards the east side of Lombok where our boat was waiting. On the way we stopped at a couple of places - Loyok where we saw some traditional bamboo weaving and ate a traditional farmer's lunch, Masbagik where we saw some traditional pot making, and Lombok Labuan where we saw some traditional boat making. It was all very traditional really.
Finally arriving at the boat in the early afternoon we headed off into the breeze for a 6 hour layover on a little island with the imaginative name of Perama Resort. The programme called for snorkelling, swimming and sunbathing, but unfortunately it was blowing a gale, so after a short walk around the island we sat in the shelter of their huts and waited.
It all turned out well in the end though, had a lovely dinner with our fellow hunters and it was followed up by the crew leading a singalong around a campfire. At 9 o'clock we all piled back onto the boat and set sail (not literally) for Satonda Island - our first stop in the morning.
As with many places here in Indonesia, Satonda island seems to be the remanent of an ancient volcano, with the caldera still largely intact, and in fact full of salt water. So a short walk from the beach saw us all gazing over our own private swimming pool :) Nice way to start the day.
Once again, the programme called for snorkelling, but a combination of low tide and wind meant that there was not much point, so we pushed on towards our next stop - Kilo Beach for more snorkelling and sunbathing.
It was much calmer today and the boat trip around the north side of Sumbawa was really nice. Saw a few dolphins but none that wanted to play with the boat. Actually we saw dolphins every day on the trip which is always nice ;)
It turned out that the timing wasn't right for Kilo Beach, so instead we sailed on to a small
village where most of the others went ashore and wandered around. We stayed on
board and swam around the boat instead.
After dinner we set sail once again, this time with Komodo Island as our destination. One of the nice things about being on the boat was the sunsets and sunrises - with limited things to do on board, they tended to drive our days, so early to bed and early to rise were the watch words of the trip.
We knew already that seeing dragons on Komodo itself is less likely than on its sister island, Rinca, but full of hope we set off at 7am for a guided walk searching for the elusive reptiles. And sure enough, after a mere 30 minutes we stumbled on a herd of deer (Timor Deer I think he said) with a dragon nearby wandering off into the undergrowth. We didn't see that one very well, but it was a good omen. Not more than 5 minutes later we found a big dragon lying in the bush nearby. Just quietly, they're huge. Like really big. This one was estimated to be around 30 years old and was probably a little over 2m long. With our ever watchful park rangers nearby, ready to poke him with a stick, we were around 5m from the mighty beast.
After a while we'd had our fill of photos and headed off for the rest of our walk. We didn't see any more dragons on the walk, although we did come back to the same one near the end. It was an interesting walk through the bush though, normally by now the rains have come and everywhere starts turning green. This year though they are really late and most of the islands are a dusty brown.
After Komodo it was a short boat trip to Red Beach for snorkelling followed by a 3 hour haul over to Labuan Bajo on Flores where most of our fellow hunters left the boat and we took on a new load. You can either do the trip west to east, east to west or both, and you can even have a layover on Flores, coming back on the next boat after 6 days.
After a farewell party on board with emails swapped and what not, it was off to bed ready for our 5am departure to Rinca Island for more dragon hunting.
As soon as we came ashore on Rinca we were greated by a pair of monkeys, just round the corner we saw a buffalo and then when we arrived at the ranger camp there were 6 dragons lying around in the sun. Definitely much better chance to see wildlife on Rinca.
Once again a 2 hour walk was on the programme and this time we saw lots of dragons, the odd deer and even a few wild pigs. Again it was interesting and it was great to see so many dragons and be able to really study them - including Old Dribbly (see photo). A single dragon can in fact take down a buffalo which seems unlikely until you find out that they have some 60 different types of nasty bacteria in their saliva, including listeria, which slowly kills the animal over a number of days. So all the dragons have to do is take a bite and then wait. Nasty.
Leaving Rinca we headed off to Gili Laba for our next snorkelling stop. They say that the diving in Komodo can be some of the best in the world, but being on the Perama trip we didn't have the chance to test that. I can say though that the snorkelling is very varied. In some places it was pretty good, with a lot of variety, in others is wasn't even worth getting in the water for. Still a lot of things affect that and I wouldn't be suprised if someone else doing the same trip had a great time snorkelling.
Tonight we're sailing back along the coast of Sumbawa to Moyo Island where we'll be swimming in a waterfall, then on to Keramat Island for a spot of snorkelling and finally back to Labuan Lombok where the bus will be waiting to take us back to Sengigi...
