We anchored in the most beautiful bay off Komodo Island, one of the over 17,000 islands that comprise Indonesia. `In the bay many islands rose up from the waters while mountainous hills formed a ring around the bay. Those in the know tell me that the bay resembled Halong Bay in Vietnam. However the principal reason for our visit was not the fabulous scenery, but the famous Komodo dragons, which are the largest lizards on earth.
Our visit started with a short tender ride to a long jetty. At the end of this was the entrance to the park where we were divided into groups. Each group had a guide and two rangers with long poles, reputedly to protect us from the dragons. Apparently they are very dangerous because their saliva is highly poisonous, containing sixteen different types of bacteria. The first dragon we saw was a young one about three feet long, just walking across the beach.
After walking along a dusty track for some minutes we were told to be quiet as the next part was extremely dangerous!! I think this is like every Australian guide telling one to look out for snakes and deadly spiders, of which we have seen none. Any way we came to a dusty looking waterhole where there were several dragons torpidly lying around, flicking their tongues in and out. I was able to get one shot in which the dragon looked fierce but apart from that not a lot happened. One of the cynics in our party thought that they had been drugged, who knows. An interesting experience.
The sail away from the bay was beautiful in the late afternoon sunshine, with rain clouds hovering over the mountains. We then played the final team trivia game, our team had much fun and surprisingly came second. It was then time for the crew to be thanked and recognised at a deck party. Finally we had dinner with Kathy and Fred from Pittsburgh, the discussion was wide ranging. Surprisingly he thought that the English legal system was more expensive and cumbersome than that in the US.
Tomorrow we dock in Bali for our last whole day on the Seabourn Encore.
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