September 2019 [by Bill]
On September 11, I left Bali for a 7-day 6-night Komodo National Reserve tour, which started off with a 8:00 AM van pick up at my apartment. The van ride took a little over an hour to get to the town of Padang Bai. I waited about an hour until I boarded a “fast boat” to Senggigi on Lombok Island. While waiting for the boat to depart, I grabbed a noodle dish at one of the local eateries. Stephanie, a young woman from San Francisco booked the same 7-day/6-night tour that I’m taking, so we shared a few travel adventures, and a late breakfast.
The boat trip took about 2 1/2 hours, and yes indeed, it was a very fast boat, powered by 6 large outboard engines, going full throttle. At times, it felt like we were baerly touching the water. We passed a number of Indonesian islands, some quite large, others just a bit of rocky ground above the water line. Indonesia has over 17,000 islands.
We stopped to watch the monkeys outside of
Suranadi Park. The monkeys are pretty tame (until they aren’t), and they come out in numbers when they know people come by, as they are looking for easy food hand outs. So cute, some with very young newborns hanging onto their mothers underside.
We then visited a small botanical garden, with a nice sampling of flowers and aromas filling the air. We also saw some incredibly large spiders, a few almost as large as my hand. We ate lunch there as well.
Towards the end of the day we boarded the small boat we’ll be staying on for the next few nights. When I booked this tour (very last minute, just 2-days in advance), on the web site, I didn’t notice you had the option to book a private room Vs sleeping on the top deck, on 2” matts, a roof over heads but open air sides.
After sailing through the night on September 12th, we set anchor off of the Satona Island around 7:00 AM on September 13th.
We ate breakfast and then climbed into a tiny motor boat (fits 8 – shoulder to shoulder) for a quick beach landing, and then a nice hike to enjoy some fresh water swimming for about an hour or so. Not far away, we were able to view the huge swarm of very large bats, which flew in circles just across the small valley below us.
We then continued our journey until we dropped anchor offshore from an island for another swim. I left my mark by assembling a few rock towers at the beach. We ate dinner on board the boat around 7:30 PM, and then once again sailed through the night to
Labuan Bajo, on the island of Flores, landing at the “red beach”, as there are tiny specs of pinkish “sand”, mixed in with the white sand.
It took our boat from 9:00 PM last night until around 7:00 AM to reach the Komodo National Reserve, with the full moon behind us, as the sun came up.
There are 2 large islands, several moderate, and a number of smaller islands which comprise the
Komodo National Reserve. I visited the first of the islands in the Reserve today, arriving around 8:00 AM. All kinds of boats are anchored off shore, some like ours, some sail boats, and others are very small (holding just a few passengers).
As we got off of the boat, we met with the rangers, who escorted us, and gave a mini tour of the history and lots of information about the Komodo dragons (really huge lizards), as well as the pending temporary closure of the Komodo National Reserve to all tourism starting in 2020 (they are going to study what effects tourism is having on the Dragons, as well as the ecology). It’s not clear when the Reserve will reopen for tourists, but it looks to be a few years off at least.
1377 Dragons on this island
20,000 visitors per year
A few hundred locals live on the Komodo National Reserve, selling hand made items and snacks to tourists
In the afternoon, we sailed to another island, and swam for a bit. I decided to hike up a decent sized hill nearby, and the views of the beaches were stunning (the photos don’t do justice).
On
September 15, Our boat anchored off
Rinca Island, the second location of the Komodo dragons (1,050 dragons here).
Seeing Komodo dragons is a special treat, as I’ve long watched TV documentaries, and history channel shows about these prehistoric “dinosaurs”. I saw more dragons here than I did on the previous day. So exciting!
We hiked along the
Loh Buaya walking trails in the morning. Towards the top, a fairly large deer walking parallel to us for a good 10-minutes or so. Afterwards, we went snorkeling off one of the smaller Komodo National Reserve islands. New signs have been posted that hiking is not allowed, which was kinda a bummer, as there was a decent sized hill/mountain that had a small, very steep winding pathway you could see from the shoreline.
After viewing the Komodo dragons and snorkeling, we faced a 19-hour boat trip back to
Moyo Island. Along the way, we saw an active volcano with a lava stream (several sections seeing lava), with additional plums of smoke from the top of the mountain, plus several other areas down below.
We anchored off of Moyo Island, arriving around 5:00 AM, September 16th. A very nice sunrise in the morning.
We toured a small village, then went to a local waterfall, where I jumped off a 10-15 foot small rock formation into a small pool of water below. Also a rope swing into the same pool of water. My feet got a bit scrapped up when I hit the bottom, but it was a new experience.
At 10:00 AM we sailed west from Moyo Island to Keramat Island and used a speed boat to reach the island for our final swim before sailing back to Labuhan Lombok, where we caught a bus to Senggigi on the west side of the island of Lombok, to stay in a hotel for our final full day of this tour.
Keramat Island is a micro island, a few hundred yards wide in each direction, white sand all around, lots of palm trees blowing in the wind, and a very gradual slope into the water. As I was standing 100+ yards from the shoreline, and the water was only just above my ankles.
The weather this whole week has been sunny, with occasional clouds, high 80’s to low 90’s, and most days a slight breeze to help with the overall heat.
Small Wide World 