Tag Archives: Komodo

Day 97 – Manta Manta

Morning mist hiding the sun a bit

Morning mist hiding the sun a bit

To our surprise we had a good night’s sleep in the cabin of our little boat near the flying foxes. The sea got dead calm over night and once  everyone was settled into their resting place, the swaying stopped and the boat stood calm and still through the night.

We got up early to watch the sunrise and the flying foxes one more time. The vistas were once again beautiful, the breakfast of batter fried bananas and Flores coffee rocked and soon we were well under way towards Manta Point.

Passing close to the boat

Passing close to the boat

Once again, we scored with the wildlife! Two rays were feeding at this point, and we got within meters of them snorkeling around. Nina was a bit apprehensive of their tail spikes and got back onto the boat while I stuck with them and got to swim a while longer with these majestic creatures.

After that cool start, we made our way, roughly back towards Labuan Bajo to stop at the last itinerary of our excursion: Kanawa Island. We did another two great sets of snorkeling to explore the reef. Once we were good, the last lunch of the trip got served (I got the fish that Aco caught last night). And that was it, two hours later we were back in Labuan Bajo, gave our exhausted but happy goodbyes to our crew and retired to our hotel for some wifi and packing.

Tomorrow, Sumbawa …

Day 96 – Here be dragons

Komodo. For us, it was all about this island. One of those things that we both had seen documentaries about as kids with a “one day I will go there” notion in our heads.

The two days and one night on the boat encompassed more than just Komodo but we were mostly excited about the dragons.

A map of the Komodo National Park

A map of the Komodo National Park

We had what is called an “early breakfast” at 7.30am which was actually late for us. The guide was said to pick us up at 8am but he was a bit early too. A hasty breakfast with coconut-filled buns later, we were trailing behind Aco to the boat. Flo and I expected other people to join us for the cruise but it turned out that we had chartered Aco and his son Side with their modified fisher boat all for ourselves. Having the deck just for us meant a lot of space on the ride out to Rinca our first stop for the day.

Rinca, as well as Komodo island, belongs to the Komodo National Park. There are fewer dragons living on Rinca but over two thousand nonetheless. It took us two hours to get out there during which Flo and I had the provided tea, coffee and water. Once landed, a ranger took us to the ticket office where you have to pay a fee for almost everything (the park itself, visiting an island, snorkelling, trekking, camera etc. and at last, the ranger’s services) before we were taken in a guided tour. At the start, you can choose if you wanna do the short, medium or long trek and we were unanimously agreeing on the short trek. Needed the time for the long trek on Komodo, you see? Continue reading →