Komodo Island, Indonesia - Nov 04, 2014

Today was a hot and humid day and a great day to go hunting for dragons, Komodo Dragons. This is our second time here and once again the day did not disappoint. Yes it was hot, six people from the ship were treated for heat exhaustion so with plenty of water in hand we knew that the key to enjoying this day will be maintaining our fluids.

There are 2,800 dragons on Komodo which is very well run by the Indonesian Government and the Komodo National Park Game Wardens. There was a problem with dragon pouching some years ago but now since under government control the dragon population has returned to a stable level. So with that all said, the access to the park (and island) is limited to those with a guided tour by a Park Ranger. No tour, you cannot set foot on the island, simple as that. Now this does not need to be a ship's tour and they are very good at informing us of this, of course the ship has a great relationship with Komodo and does do excellent tours here. For us today was a bit different now that we are getting to know some people, mainly thanks to Jeff. Pauline, a passenger on the ship, and a person very active in putting tours together, put together a great private excursion here with a combination, Komodo Dragon trek and boat ride to Pink Beach for snorkeling with boxed lunch. She was originally full at 19 people but Jeff (once he heard that we were able to do this voyage) contacted her back in August where she agreed to add us on - but no more.

Through some very special arrangements our group of 19 assembled early (9:30) and were able to take our own private tender over at 9:45 before anyone or any tours left the ship - now how is that for special treatment. Thank you HAL, Pauline and Jeff. First on the island meant first tour, meaning first look at the Dragons - excellent. We had finished our trek when many of the ship's masses were still assembling - so before the sun got really hot, nice. Only 13 of us went to the beach (some wanted to shop, others wanted to just go back to the ship, while a few talked our guide into doing another bigger round - for a price of course. So 13 on two huge boats, again nice as was Pink Beach. Beautiful pink sand from the grinding of the red coral combined with the white sand - soft, fine and just wonderful. On the way over we heard that the snorkeling here was listed as one of the ten best snorkel sites in the world, there is a separate GoPro upload on this amazing underwater adventure.

Two parts for Komodo...