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On the sea day yesterday we saw lots of flying fish. They were about six inches long and some flew as long as a quarter mile in the air! Hundreds of them went flying as the boat pushed forward at 18 knots (over 25 mph).
Today, in fairly calm waters, there were pods of smallish dolphins jumping completely out of the water as we ate lunch at Compass Rose restaurant on-board. Just wonderful!
Click here for detailed Komodo Photo Gallery.
We arrived at the Komodo National Park in Komodo, Indonesia and set anchor at 9:30 am. The destination lecture had told us that this island was the inspiration for the 1933 King Kong movie and, of course, the home of the Komodo dragon…big lizard-like creatures that will eat you if you aren’t paying attention. The island was beautifully green and lush as well as completely remote.
The park is a World Heritage Site and a Man and Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO, both indications of the Park’s biological importance. It is located in the center of the Indonesian archipelago, which consists of 17,508 islands. Komodo is located between the islands of Sumbawa and Flores. It is home to approximately 2,000 people and 1,200 Komodo Dragons!
In the wild, an adult dragon weighs around 150 lbs. although captive specimens often weigh more (true of most of us…). The tail is as long as its’ body and they have 60 frequently replaced serrated teeth that can measure up to 1 inch in length. The dragons have a long, yellow, deeply forked tongue that it uses to smell, making it similar to a snake.
We met at the Constellation theater at 11:30 am and took the ship’s tender to shore for our guided tour of the park. The only excursion offered today is this guided tour around the island. They let us know a few days ago that we could expect significant heat and humidity, so they offered a shorter, 1-hour tour which we opted to take. The island is known primarily for the Komodo dragons, but is also home to many different types of birds, deer, wild boar, large spiders, spitting cobras and poisonous vipers (yikes!). So when they told us that we had to be accompanied by a guide, we said “no problem”!
Our guide walked us along a jungle-like path, pointing out interesting birds and plants along the way. Every plant seemed to have some use in their life, whether it was for making pillows, sweet fruit or for medicinal purposes. Within 15 minutes we had spotted our first footprints and then the actual dragons…two large males who were pretty docile…just sitting calmly on the ground. Once in a while they’d look at us and flick out their tongue to get a smell. After a bit we moved on down the trail and within a minute or two we spotted another one, this time a female, in the thick brush. We had 3 guards with our group of 20 and each of them carried a long, forked wooden stick that they would use to stop a charging dragon?? Not sure how they would do that, but they seemed to know what they were doing.
Throughout the walk we heard strange bird calls and even got a glimpse of a beautiful yellow bird that we have yet to identify. Soon after one of our guides caught a flying lizard and held it up for us to take pictures and admire.
As we approached the town area our guide pointed out another dragon and then a few more! We were pretty excited to see that not only were we getting lots of dragon sightings, but in the same area we could see 4 or 5 deer and in the distance a wild hog! It was a plethora of wildlife. Dale was taking pictures and I was making sure there was a guide around so as not to get into a position where Dale, I or the other people in our group became lunch for a dragon!
We safely finished our walk, which ended up being the start of another adventure…navigating the locals selling their wares.
The locals here do a great job putting their handiwork on display and, as we’d heard on the ship, they would have great bargains on local pearls and wood carvings. We hadn’t really expected what we were walking into to, it was an intense shopping experience!
I was excited to buy some local pearls and had heard the prices were quite reasonable and the quality decent. I started to look and quickly found out these local guys were looking to close deals…not a good place to be a “looky lou”. I found some pearls that I liked, negotiated with the guy and then looked around for Dale. He was over on the other side of the tented “shop” area looking for me! When I told him I’d found something he indicated that he’d also found something and, of course, we’d found very similar things!
The market was bustling with about 30 stands and before long, we noticed that it had started raining. We were under a thatched roof structure that had numerous stalls attached that were covered with plastic tarp roofs. The sales guys were pretty aggressive and before long I’d negotiated a beautiful double strand of 20” pink pearls for $30 (down from $60)!!! Nice.
Once the guys saw me buying, they were all over us. It was as crazy a scene as I’ve ever experienced. On top of that, the rain was really coming down…so much so that the tarps were starting to fill with water and dump onto the display tables! It was crazy. Luckily we were still under the thatched roof, but it was still pretty wet. We waited a while for the rain to subside, but it just didn’t stop. We had a choice, wait for a break in the rain and deal with the never-ending harassment from the locals to buy one more stand of pearls, or make a dash to the pier. Now the pier was only about 1,000 feet away, but it was raining HARD and we didn’t have an umbrella.
Finally, after getting our fill of the constant harassment from the vendors, we made a mad dash for the pier. We got drenched! And, to make things more complicated, we needed to have guides go with us as there were still Komodo dragons hanging about that could eat us! When we got to the pier we were relived to see there was a tent structure set up, but sadly no space for us under it…at this point it really didn’t matter as we were already as wet as we could get. After what felt like an hour the tender finally disembarked it’s passengers for the next tour (yes, they got off the tender in a torrential downpour), and the rest of us packed like sardines, made our way on-board. Finally out of the rain.
It was an amazing experience and, while we wouldn’t want to do it again, we wouldn’t have missed it for the world. The funniest part was, after our tender boat pulled alongside the Voyager and we were set to disembark, two of the local pearl sales guys, who it turns out, had gotten into canoes and followed us all the way back to our ship, stuck their head through the side of the tender and started trying to sell us more pearls!! Unbelievable. The tenacity of these guys was incredible!
After a hot shower and some dry clothes, we met our friends Judy and Franco for dinner and re-lived the day while plotting out our plan to do Bali…a great day with another one just around the corner.
Photography Comments:
Today started off with a bust of a sunrise. I was all ready to go up to the top deck like yesterday but it just didn’t happen. It cleared up a bit but, by the time we left the ship to go to shore it was clouding up as predicted and, by the time our tour started it was another white-out. I set the D700 to ISO 1600 since we were going to be in the forest and probably should have gone for 3200. It got pretty dark and, as it turned out, you had to zoom out to get the dragons since the guides kept you a safe distance away. As you know, when you zoom out the F stop on the lens goes up as the shutter speed gets longer to get a proper exposure when you are Aperture mode. This results in a shutter speed under 1/100 which will give you a decent exposure but won’t get your crystal clear focus on a moving dragon or his VERY speedy tongue. Still, I got some decent enough shots. If you were in a normal situation you would learn from your first day and go back another day and get it perfect, or perfect enough. When you are on a cruise ship you just don’t have second chances so you get used to dealing with what you have.
The rain storm presented it’s own challenges. I had been planning on just going back to the ship but it started raining. I had set the camera to ISO 400 when I was playing with taking shots of the last dragon and forgot to set it back to 1600 or higher when we got in the dark tented sales area. That’s the reason for the slightly blurry shots of Margaret. Quite frankly, I was just trying keep from having my camera equipment AND me get dumped on with the huge volumes of water that were dropping on us from time to time without warning.
Cheryl Cowan - Wow… what an amazing trip this is for you both. Absolutely beautiful photos. Must seem like you’ve been gone forever. You are having experiences people like myself only dream about. I get excited to think about ridding a bike down GW Parkway! LOL Love reading about your adventures. Thanks for taking us on the trip with you. Love you both. Oh and I’m repeating the mantra about buses to encourage myself to ride the bus here.The bus here in town that stops in front of our house… No lines, no hurrying to get there, not crowded but for some reason I’d rather walk.
Love you,
Cheryl
Marlene Shirley - Dear Dale and Margaret,
I feel so badly that I did not have your website to follow you trip until Cheryl gave it to me. I thought for a while that you had dropped off the face of the earth. I am going to have to get caught up on your travels. I quickly scanned through you last few posts. AMAZING …..wow and absolutely beautiful pictures. Am excited to read through everything. By the way, not sure if you have been on FB. But Marlon is racing in So. California on April 21st. Kerry and I along with Mary and her kids are going to be there. Any chance of you guys coming down? Not sure when you are going to be home. Love to you both, Marlene
Trip Summary » Travel with Dale & Margaret - […] Komodo, Indonesia […]