Indonesia
How a non sea-worthy wreck still brought us to the Komodo Islands
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Johan Kruseman
Updated on 2 August 2024
Updated on 2 August 2024
Everyone was silent. Totally stunned. Early in the morning, we, a group of thirty people, stared at a rundown wooden shack. It floated, so you could call it a boat. Sometimes we looked enviously at the boat from the other group. Theirs had everything you‘d call a boat, or so we wanted to believe. Ours floated. The lifeboat, supposed to fit four out of the thirty people, was used as an extra sunbed on the front deck. We exchanged glances: this would be our accommodation for the next four days, partly out on the open sea.
The worse the conditions, the stronger the group bond; or, let‘s put it positively, nothing was left to chance to make that group bond even stronger. Halfway through the first night, the engine broke down, but they managed to fix it. During the day, it broke down again, and we had to return to the nearest island with only half power. There, the captain mentioned that this boat wasn‘t seaworthy anyway, so we were lucky he was arranging a better boat for us. It‘s all a matter of perspective. To reassure us, he said the replacement smaller boat was already on its way. But that word “smaller“ didn‘t really help. Soon, the boat that was supposed to come was even bigger, until after waiting for five hours, it turned out that no boat was coming at all. Everything seemed to suggest that the crew preferred a more relaxed schedule and had therefore simulated an engine failure. That evening, they started the engine again, and a few hours of rest had apparently done the engine good. It ran smoothly again, and the boat seemed to have become seaworthy again. Now that everything seemed to be going well, we were served half-cooked pancakes for brunch, just not quite enough dinner, so we had to fight for every piece of chicken. The mats were even thinner than on the volcano: they clearly didn‘t skimp on the ingredients for a brilliant group bond here.
We arrived at Komodo Island. The name already hinted that Komodo dragons (they sound cooler in English than “Komodo Varan” in Dutch) were here. These creatures wait motionless in one spot, relying on their camouflage, until a deer gets a little too close. At that moment, they deliver one bite. While the bacteria they transfer from their mouths into the deer‘s wound eventually kill the deer, the Komodo dragon continues to nap for a few days. I think the koala bear has a serious competitor for the laziest creature on Earth. Once the deer breathes its last, the dragon devours it entirely, skin and all. And quite literally, the bones go down the throat along with the meat. To make it clear that the competition with the koala bear is on, the dragon abstains from eating for a month.
And in that light, our next encounter had to be seen. After spotting a few sleeping dragons here and there, camouflaged on the island, we suddenly stumbled upon three of them in the act of devouring a deer. The guide mentioned that National Geographic had spent three months on the island before and had only seen the sleeping variants. It was unique to see them like this, and it became even more painful on the next island.
On the smaller Rinca Island, the chances of seeing Komodo dragons were higher, and the new ranger also began enthusiastically. “If we‘re lucky, we might spot one or two today,” he said, trying to make it exciting. When we found the first one, he got so excited that even Steve Irwin could‘ve learned a thing or two from him: “If you look closely, you‘ll see one lying over there in the distance”... “You guys are lucky today.” The enthusiasm wasn‘t shared by our group. “You can take photos,“ he tried hopefully, thinking we were just extremely shy. A guy next to me explained to the ranger what we had seen on the other island. “Three?” he asked incredulously, to which the guy replied that a fourth one joined in halfway. The ranger hadn‘t seen any of them eat in the three years he had been working there. Well, he hadn‘t spent four days fighting over the last chicken leg with thirty other people on an unseaworthy boat. Let‘s call it even.
Our four-day boat trip came to an end. A quick count taught us that we had all survived. We disembarked in the small fishing village of Labuan Bajo on Flores.
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Traveled route: Bali, Denpasar, Buleleng, Boengkoelan, Gili Air, Lombok, Pemenang, mount Rinjani, Komodo Island, Flores, Labuan Bajo, Sumatra, Medan, Bukit Lawang, Banda Aceh, Pelabuhan Balohan, Jakarta, Yogyakarta, Imogiri Pine Forest, Borobudur Temple, Malang, Mount Bromo, Ijen, Banyuwangi, Surabaya
× How a non sea-worthy wreck still brought us to the Komodo Islands
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