After sleeping out on deck, I was stirred by water droplets dripping on the sheet I was under, I just tried to ignore it. Turned out to be some condensation from the semi cover over the chill out deck. Shortly after, we were properly woken from our slumber by Darryn yelling "Guys, check it out!". A huge Komodo dragon was walking right down the pier our boat was tied to, and he had almost reached our boat by the time we spotted him! Probably 2.5m long, he was certainly the biggest lizard I had ever seen! He stumbled down the steps to the section closest to us, his yellow tongue constantly flicking in and out of his mouth, smelling something good to be sure. He wandered around for a while and then headed back. The captain of our boat was pretty freaked out as he was going to sleep on the pier, and luckily picked a spot a bit higher up and out of reach of the deadly bite of the dragon!
After a quick coffee, we ourselves walked up the pier around 7AM, the first tourists to alight on Rinca island, the second of two primary Komodo dragon islands which are dedicated nature reserves. Darryn explained that the dragons on Komodo island were larger, but Rinca was more guaranteed to see them... We arrived at the ranger station, paid our entrance fees (Rp30,000) and met our guide. He explained that we would be taking a short walk around the island and up to a viewpoint. Within 5 minutes of walking, we already spotted a large dragon basking in the sun and we were able to get pretty close to him. He didn't move much, and it was hard to believe the dragons can run up to 18km/hour. He had saliva hanging from his mouth and the guide explained that their mouths are extremely dangerous, with many different bacteria, including septicemia. This is how the dragon kills its prey (monkeys, buffaloes, pigs, deer...): by hiding in a bush and biting the animal. The bite is almost always fatal, so the dragon follows the animal around until it can no longer walk, and then will devour it. They usually only eat once a month. They are often cannibalistic and will even eat their babies!
We continued walking, and saw some monkeys with a baby, a Komodo dragon egg den, and a beautiful female deer. The trail got steeper and we headed uphill towards a gorgeous viewpoint, where we got a great group photo. Up there, we found another Komodo sitting on a rock, a bit like a statue. We headed back and found a last Komodo close to the ranger station - quite active walking around and looking for tidbits to eat. We got some great pics with him before going back to the boat.
Darryn was determined to follow dragons with Mantas, the Giants of the deep, so he took us to "Makassar" - Manta Point. Here we did our first extreme drift dive. The current was so strong that no amount of swimming was necessary or helpful, we just got whooshed along. Soon we spotted our first manta, a huge, dark and amazingly graceful creature. I struggled to grab onto something to stop long enough to admire and video it. Through the dive we saw 6 more mantas, the most we had ever seen in our lives, and one stopped right in front of us to be cleaned of parasites by the small fish. The current didn't seem to bother them at all! we also saw sharks and other interesting sea life, but there weren't many corals here.
We did two more incredible dives that day, the first was the Cauldron. Another exciting drift dive, we dropped down into a sheltered area called the first bowl, filled with thousands of trevally and fusiliers. When Darryn gave the 'shotgun' signal, we popped back into the current and rode it all the way. We also saw three sharks, three different shrimps in one place, a blue spot stingray and hundreds of garden eels popping their heads up from the sand.
The last dive China shop was amazing corals, and we saw our first turtle, as well as two leaf fish together, pretty rare! And lots of other exciting sightings.
Then Darryn had another sunset plan for us... He had arranged for a friend with a dingy to take us to a nearby sandy island, to walk up the hill and watch the sunset. Indonesia rewarded us with another beautiful sunset, this time framed by a smoking volcano, which had erupted a year ago, and a cool black pirate ship below us.
The last dive China shop was amazing corals, and we saw our first turtle, as well as two leaf fish together, pretty rare! And lots of other exciting sightings.
Then Darryn had another sunset plan for us... He had arranged for a friend with a dingy to take us to a nearby sandy island, to walk up the hill and watch the sunset. Indonesia rewarded us with another beautiful sunset, this time framed by a smoking volcano, which had erupted a year ago, and a cool black pirate ship below us.
We ended our day with a night dive at Gili Lawa Darat Bay- a real first for us! We really enjoyed it, and Darryn was amazing at picking up some of the tiny small things that come out at night, plurobranch (huge nudibranch), flounder, shrimps, crabs, cuttlefish, octopus, lionfish and scorpionfish. As we did our 5m stop, we switched off our torches and it was pitch black. But when we waved our arms around, we were amazed by the bio-luminous plankton lighting the water up!
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