We spent three days on our own around Komodo Island. The day we arrived in what we thought was the correct spot to see the Komodo dragons we spent put puting around in the dinghy looking for the concrete dock that was supposed to lead us to the ranger station. We were a little mystified but then another boat showed up and we thought we must be in the right spot. Well finally I went back over some stuff we had and figured out we were a bay to far over and we upped anchor and motored about 5 miles around a headland and found the spot we were looking for. The topography of the islands reminded us very much of the Sea of Cortez in Mexico, dry, brown vegetation covering very hilly islands that jut out all over the place, it was just missing the cactus. We went on a 2 hour hike in the Komodo National Park lead by a lad with a forked stick. The stick was to protect us from the dragons which can be very aggressive. They apparently are very quick and lay in wait in their wonderful camouflage and then attack and bite their prey, which can consist of goats, wild pigs, deer and water buffalo, as well as the odd stray dog that unsuspecting cruisers have let run around loose! They have poisonous teeth and their bite is fatal, a buffalo taking as long as a week to die while a human will succumb in about 2 days. We managed to glimpse about 6 dragons, one was fast asleep with his head stuck under a rock, another was lying in the bush checking us out as a possible meal as we jalan, jalan, pelan pelan by (that is Indonesian for walked slowly). We saw about 10 buffalo wallowing in the water, our guide was very strict about how close we could get to the animals while taking their pictures. Oh, by the way to get into the park we had to pay an entry fee, a fee for the guide, buy a permit to anchor, all not a problem but when they charged us for the number of cameras we had, I thought that was a little over the top! The next day we headed over to the "pink beach" where the red coral has broken up in tiny little pieces so that the sand appears to be pink, we had some great drift snorkeling with the dinghy. The current is so fast that you just hold on to the dinghy and the current takes you along and when you have had enough you just hop in the dinghy and away you go rather than trying to swim against the current away from or back to the dinghy. At the moment we are dead heading it for Bali, about a 3 day sail in order to catch up to the rest of the fleet and participate in the planned activities in Bali. It will be good to see some folks that we haven't seen since we left Darwin 2 months ago. Pictures once we get to Bali.
