A two week holiday could lead to an endlessly excessive and as always, very verbose blog entry so I’m going to do what I can to hit the highlights, keep it to the bare minimum, or break it up into a few manageable bits. I like telling stories. So yes, it was an adventure, some great moments, some not so great moments, and I continue to lead a very fun life. How on earth could anyone ever expect me to stop this wandering? There’s just so much going on out here!
Main point of all of my holidays… diving. Destination… Komodo. On recommendations of a friend of a friend (thank you Deb, thank you Josh!) we had arranged for 6 days of diving in Komodo. After much head scratching and internetting (is that a word??) it all finally made sense. There are no dive companies on Komodo, it is a bare, rugged, undeveloped piece of rock and trees. There are a few places to stay and wander around, but the dive companies are based out of Labuan Bajo, in Flores, the big, main island. You fly into LBJ then either do a liveaboard trip (which we could NOT afford) or simply put in the hours on a boat to and fro the dive sites every day, like we did. Komodo is the signature island; it’s not where anyone spends any of their time, but the name draws us all in. Dragons, and for those of us in the loop, diving. I like being in the diving loop.
So blah, blah, blah, a long travel day and an unorganized arrival but Jon, Kat, and I arrive Christmas Eve, settle in to this permanently rough and under construction port town, and are keen to spend Christmas Day under the sea. The weather was looking splendidly sunny, word on the street was that diving had been off the charts, and Santa was heading our way. Let’s go diving.
A rough start to the morning as the dive shop appeared to be fantastically disorganized but it’s Christmas and we’re going diving, it’s all going to be okay. Side note of importance. Most national parks in Indonesia have park fees, all of which seem to be bizarrely expensive and obviously go straight into some corrupted official’s back pocket. Every stretch of land and water seems to be a “national park”. Komodo area was no different. There were fees for going out to the sea, fees for diving in the sea, fees for stopping at an island, fees for going ON an island… oh good grief… so much money to be made. Thankfully, thankfully, THANKFULLY our Indonesian work visas got us in for local rates, literally 10% of the foreigner fees. Saved $100 easily. Easy. Thank you, KELT!
Boat trips out to the dive sites took about 1.5 to 2 hours EACH WAY so long days on the water. What does that mean for me, folks? Come on, you remember. Yep. Blech! While I managed to not vomit AT ALL during the six days of back and forth, I was pretty useless on board. A nice enough boat, big and fairly steady, but yeah, I’m just a whiny bag of mush who was too long out of practice. Under the sea, however, under the sea, well, it all just came together.
Again, boring and pointless for me to go on and on about the one thing in the world that still makes my heart beat a little faster every single time. It can still scare me silly or feel like home, it takes my breath away and demands that I pay attention, it feels like it’s brand new and that I’ve been doing it forever. Oh how I love being under that sea. Komodo was meant to be wild and wicked, some of the most dangerous and devilish currents in the sea; I wasn’t sure if I was up for the challenge. The dive team however, was incredible; not one second of worry or concern. Currents and dive sites were navigated without problems and it was the stuff legends are made of all around. Truly heaven.
I can’t really explain why I dive, why I love it so much, why I want it to consume all of my free time, but I do know there are some people who get it, and some who don’t. There’s a look, there’s something in those who get it, who get what I feel, but I can’t explain it. I love watching new divers experience the sights and sensations for the first time and I love the look I see in experienced divers’ eyes, the ones who have been diving for far longer than I could ever imagine, who dive for the same reasons that I do. I’ve been diving with divers who have logged hundreds of dives, but I would never choose to dive with them again. I’ve been under the water with others who are brand new and in some of those eyes, I know they just get it. I miss diving with that Tofo crowd, the ones who feel what I feel, who have that same look in their eyes. But I love that I’ve seen some things I’ll never see anywhere else. I don’t dive to compete; to one up numbers or challenges, places or experiences. I don’t dive to see the underwater world through a camera lens so know that as divers, me and people with cameras (with a very few and select exceptions) are a bad combo. I don’t dive to be the best or in control of it all or responsible to anyone else. I get lost in my own world down there sometimes and that’s the reason I love it. I got so lost in love on a dive filled with mantas that when I finally turned away from a beauty I was watching, my group was gone. Minor panic, a big ocean all by myself, but crisis averted and we all found each other on the surface at the end of the dive. I could have stayed down there forever. Our guide’s comment to the rest of the group regarding my disappearance? “She’s with the manta, she knows what she’s doing, she’ll be fine.” Yes, my girl, good answer.
Our dive guide was brilliant and beautiful and absolutely got it. She was so generous with her time that on a couple of occasions when the conditions were calm enough and others had gone up because they had run out of air, she stayed under with me, showing me more things, letting me find things, and just diving. Yeah, she got it. 12 dives, more mantas than I could count, sharks, and an endless list of amazing creatures to fill my dreams. Dive Komodo. Do it. Now. I want to go back.
So that was week number one. Diving and silly fun for Christmas Day then a blissfully exhausting blur of dive after dive after spectacular dive.
Oh yeah. I almost forgot the dragons.
On Christmas day, on our way back from a day of delightful diving, we stopped to see the dragons. There are two islands, Komodo and Rinca, that have komodo dragons on them but for whatever reason, most trips dump you on Rinca to see them. It’s a shuffle along process where you have to follow a goon in a uniform (oh how they love their uniforms here) to an office where they make you pay more money (again, thank you KELT working visa!) and then a local ragmuffin with a big stick walks you along a path where “maybe you see dragon!” Yeah, unlikely.
There are ranger huts and a few places where visitors can stay as soon as you get on to the island. This is where the dragons hang out, because why? Because that’s where the food is. We kinda stumbled upon them, sleeping, dozing, and strolling all in one area under the “kitchen hut” so the “wild” aspect was kinda lost. They look like big ole monitor lizards, the ones that used to scare the poop out of me as we would cross paths in the jungle, me on my way to my dive shop in Malaysia, them out for an early morning sniff around. THOSE were wild dragons! These guys were pretty used to people and although they got a bit edgy when we got a little too curious, they were fairly mellow. Not the slobbering, attacking, vicious National Geographic dragons I was expecting.
Their big bellies, complacent nature, and a bizarre lack of wildlife on this primarily uninhabited island makes one wonder. Rangers swear that the dragons are no longer fed by them . Really? REEEALLY? Highly unlikely. So shame, the experience was a bit like a walk to the zoo but the island itself, very wild and dinosaur Land Before Time like, really special. And I did get to hang out with dragons for a while, no matter how staged it may have been. How many people can say that?!
So la de dah, New Year’s Eve came and Jon & Kat went to Bali, I went to explore Flores. I had been warned and warned and warned. Don’t travel Flores overland by public transport. It’s dodgy, it will take forever, just don’t do it. How often do I listen? Apparently never. And it shows. End of week one. Take a break. Week two, to be continued…
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