Sail, Scuba & Safari
Departing the Gili Islands only a few hours behind schedule (Indonesian time), our revamped pirate ship sailed east towards the famous Komodo National Park, following the northern coasts of Lombok, Sumbawa, and Flores Islands.
A total of 7 wayfarers, 2 dive masters, 1 chef, 1 cook, and 3 captains completed our crew. A dozen or so sleeping bunks resided below deck but unfortunately, so did sleeps nemesis: sea sickness. Every night, we would instead drag the thin mattresses above deck and assume a game of, what I like to call, "Port Side Tetris". Coaxing mattresses between tables and chairs, propping against dive tanks and even hot dogging the sides to squeeze between the boats side rail and the raised central cabin. Sure, some nights came with a heavy dusting of sea mist, but avoiding sea sickness was well worth the shower.
Our bathroom was of an open-air nature. Lacking a roof and hanging off the back of the ship might have provided great bathroom ventilation but the accidental peak from scenery absorbed passengers milling about above deck was inevitable.
Cramped below deck in a kitchen half the size of a New York bathroom, our chef performed seafood magic in a less-then comfortable arrangement, utilizing two gas burners with remarkable ease. Wedging himself between the stove and the drop down cutting board behind, as the boat rocked with the swell, so did our chef. Dicing, chopping, sauteing, and grilling according to the trough and crest of each wave, displaying perfect symmetry between himself and the sea.
Our captain was also a gem. With a first name bearing at least 10 vowels and 7 phonetic breaks, I chose to just call him Bob. A skilled seamen, Bob spent majority of the year at sea, sending money back to his family on Lombok's mainland. A story that I found true with all the crew members.
Enough about the boat though, let's get to the diving!
Our first 3 days at sea were broken up by a series of dives. First, to gage our current underwater abilities and second, to prepare us for what was to come.
Home to some of the most difficult dive sites in the world, Komodo National Park is a receptacle for confused currents. Fast moving streams and whirl pools ravage the waters, many visible on the surface, but far too many others, not.
For this reason, passengers not only needed an advanced dive certification but more importantly, guts. At least I had one of the two. Possessing only my open water dive certification, I was lucky enough to land a dive master willing to certify me throughout the journey. Hey, it's Indonesia. Everything is available for a price. Fortunately, this price was still far more reasonable then attaining the "Advanced Certification" elsewhere.
What our first dives lacked in technical skill, were recouped in their inexplicable beauty. My personal favorite being Bubble Reef.
Bubble Reef blossoms forth from atop a sunken, but active volcano. The same volcano that thousands of years prior created the nearby island. Although the volcano has failed to birth lava in almost a thousand years, it is still very much alive. Emitting columns of steam, manifested by way of bubbles. Swimming over the reef's black ash, thousands of bubbles stream upwards towards the ocean surface. Warm to the touch, the deeper you bury your hands in the ashen sand, the hotter it becomes. We were not the only one's enjoying the bubbles and warm currents though, hundreds of varied aquatic species joined in the fun.
After 3 days of preparatory dives and speed sailing, we arrived at Komodo National Park. More then excited for the up and coming, "Castle Rock" dive, more appropriately named, "Shark Rock", our elation was soon muffled. The easy sailing that had blessed our journey up to that point came to an unexpected halt. Caught between strong opposing currents, neither willing to concede our boat to the other, we helplessly battled the whirlpool effect for the better part of an hour. The most frightening part was not what we could see however, it was what we couldn't see. What created these giant whirlpools came from the dark abyss below. The same dark abyss we would be descending into.
During our whirlpool wait out, our dive masters began the formal Komodo dive briefing. Explained in terms of precautions:
Precaution # 1. Never swim more then 10 feet away from the coral walls.
As mentioned before, the currents in Komodo are unpredictable and take no prisoners. If you are swept off the dive site, you will either be thrust violently downwards in a possibly inescapable down current or sucked completely off the site and further out to sea. If we did find ourselves in either of these situations, the steps were relatively simple; Inflate your BCD (Buoyancy Control Device - kind of like a quick inflating life jacket), swim diligently upwards, and upon surfacing, abort the dive. Do not, and they repeated, do not try a second descent to the dive site. You get one chance and that's it!
Precaution # 2. Do not hesitate to grab onto anything and everything if you are struggling to swim against the currents.
This precaution was the hardest to adhere to because of previously ingrained divers etiquette; "Never touch the coral!" My initial resolve, however, to abstain from touching the coral was swept away with the first formidable current. As the currents would slam into the giant coral walls, the once solitary currents would be forced to separate, sweeping dangerously past both sides of the wall. At times we were literally crawling from rock to rock fighting the currents. So, I do apologize poor coral for any harm I may have inflicted.
Precaution # 3. Always use negative entry for dive site descent. Negative Entry basically means there is no air in your BCD and the moment you break the oceanic plane, an immediate downwards swim must ensue. If you hadn't reached the dive site by the time your depth gage read 20 meters, the dive was to be aborted; you had missed the sight.
A final precaution was not really a precaution at all. Just an FYI. Since the dive masters were as much at risk as we were for these dangerous diving complications, they would not be surfacing to find a lost diver. If something went wrong, you were on your own. Reassuring huh?
You may be wondering about now, why the heck anyone would want to dive in such a forbidding place? Well, strong currents equal big fish and with big fish come even bigger fish. In landlubber terms, "If you want to play with the big boys, you have to be willing to play hard ball."
After a briefing of that caliber, not to mention escaping a whirlpool of that caliber, it would be a lie to say I felt confident going into the first Komodo dive, a trepidation mimicked by most other divers, whether they admitted or not.
As mentioned before, Castle Rock, our first Komodo Dive site, is a famous shark site. First off the boat, meant I was also first to the site. As the sun penetrates the water, beams of light reflect off every bubble, wave, and current causing disorientation and vertigo. The shallow waters are manageable but the deeper one descends, the increasingly more difficult the weightless vertigo can become.
Invisible initially, the more I swam down, the clearer the dive site wall became. Jackpot! Uh, actually, more like, sharkpot. As I sorted out my buoyancy, three white tip sharks sorted me out. Sleeping right below my fins, I was thanking my lucky stars for good buoyancy otherwise I would have landed in the middle of their bedroom. And something tells me, they wouldn't have been the most accommodating hosts.
Carefully swimming backwards, my eyes did not leave theirs, as I waited for the rest of my dive team to arrive.
Once all the divers were safely down, we lined up along a rock ledge, staring into the deep abyss. The reason for this positioning was only realized after the first visitor. A large white smile, as if the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland was emerging from the darkness, slowly moved towards us but instead of a cat tail appearing next, a fin replaced it. Shark!!
Frozen to the ledge, we watched in awe as the magnificent creature revealed itself from behind the sea's thick curtain. A large, black tip shark, circled dangerously close to our coral outcropping for what seemed like the longest few minutes of my life, before casually returning back to the deep abyss. Only our first visitor of dozens.
At one point, at least 7 white tip, reef sharks were swimming all around. Their stares were ice cold yet danced with an inquisitive light. Appearing more questioning then aggressive. Their docile swimming techniques and calculated fish feeding methods, were truly unforgettable.
The next dives were of the same caliber. Not necessarily as many sharks, but the same strong currents and over sized aquatic life. Eagle rays, Moray Eels, Barracuda, Giant Traveli's (some rivaling shark size), thousands of vibrant sea anemones and even a bed of giant clams.
Emerging from each dive, we couldn't remove our regulators fast enough. Conversation flew from person to person, re-living the face to face shark experiences, the giant trigger fish attacks, and the currents that almost took us away. Of course, each story was slightly embellished.
The diving was so mentally and physically absorbing, the Komodo Dragon portion of the trip fell to the wayside. That was, until we pulled into port at Rinca Island. Home to the Komodo Dragons, Rinca Island, Komodo Island, and a small coastal part of Flores Island, are said to be the only places on earth where they live.
Komodo Dragons are the largest living lizard in the world and can grow up to 10-feet long. Living on the islands longer then any of the native peoples, locals have learned to co-exist with the dragons, raising their homes off the ground and never walking anywhere without a stick.
Accompanied by a local guide, we set off for a Komodo spotting safari around the island. Walking through knee-high grasses and dried up river beds, if not for the guides years of expertise, we easily could have stepped right on top of them. Their skin blends so naturally into the dry, desolate surrounds that only a skilled eye can spot them.
Dating back from prehistoric time, Komodo Dragons do not hide their age very well. They look bloody old, sporting scaly skin, dinosaur-like tales, and serpentine forked tongues. What the dragons lack in looks, they redeem with a unique, modern day strut.
Similar to the tactics of a pool shark, the Komodo strut uses awkward movements and a slow dragging of their claws to appear powerless. Then, when the time is right, they strike with speed and precision.
One quick bite is all it takes to inject a lethal poison into the prey's bloodstream. From this point, 2-3 days is all the animal has left before an inevitable death. Sensing their death, animals instinctively go to the nearest watering hole and as they take their last breaths, the dragons move in. Eating everything from bones to flesh, the only body parts left are skulls and horns (which they can't crack into small enough pieces for digestion). This is exactly what we saw, only 4 days after the latest Buffalo perished at the local watering hole.
Over the course of the day we saw at least 20 Komodo's ranging in size from toddlers to full grown adults. No cages, no trainers, and no komodo trick shows, I couldn't have asked for a more real encounter with these magnificent creatures.
Returning to the Gili Islands from Komodo National Park was much quicker then the journey there. Catching favorable winds, we flew over the swell, stopping only for a few last "fun dives".
This splurge was well worth every rupiah!©
A total of 7 wayfarers, 2 dive masters, 1 chef, 1 cook, and 3 captains completed our crew. A dozen or so sleeping bunks resided below deck but unfortunately, so did sleeps nemesis: sea sickness. Every night, we would instead drag the thin mattresses above deck and assume a game of, what I like to call, "Port Side Tetris". Coaxing mattresses between tables and chairs, propping against dive tanks and even hot dogging the sides to squeeze between the boats side rail and the raised central cabin. Sure, some nights came with a heavy dusting of sea mist, but avoiding sea sickness was well worth the shower.
Our bathroom was of an open-air nature. Lacking a roof and hanging off the back of the ship might have provided great bathroom ventilation but the accidental peak from scenery absorbed passengers milling about above deck was inevitable.
Cramped below deck in a kitchen half the size of a New York bathroom, our chef performed seafood magic in a less-then comfortable arrangement, utilizing two gas burners with remarkable ease. Wedging himself between the stove and the drop down cutting board behind, as the boat rocked with the swell, so did our chef. Dicing, chopping, sauteing, and grilling according to the trough and crest of each wave, displaying perfect symmetry between himself and the sea.
Our captain was also a gem. With a first name bearing at least 10 vowels and 7 phonetic breaks, I chose to just call him Bob. A skilled seamen, Bob spent majority of the year at sea, sending money back to his family on Lombok's mainland. A story that I found true with all the crew members.
Enough about the boat though, let's get to the diving!
Our first 3 days at sea were broken up by a series of dives. First, to gage our current underwater abilities and second, to prepare us for what was to come.
Home to some of the most difficult dive sites in the world, Komodo National Park is a receptacle for confused currents. Fast moving streams and whirl pools ravage the waters, many visible on the surface, but far too many others, not.
For this reason, passengers not only needed an advanced dive certification but more importantly, guts. At least I had one of the two. Possessing only my open water dive certification, I was lucky enough to land a dive master willing to certify me throughout the journey. Hey, it's Indonesia. Everything is available for a price. Fortunately, this price was still far more reasonable then attaining the "Advanced Certification" elsewhere.
What our first dives lacked in technical skill, were recouped in their inexplicable beauty. My personal favorite being Bubble Reef.
Bubble Reef blossoms forth from atop a sunken, but active volcano. The same volcano that thousands of years prior created the nearby island. Although the volcano has failed to birth lava in almost a thousand years, it is still very much alive. Emitting columns of steam, manifested by way of bubbles. Swimming over the reef's black ash, thousands of bubbles stream upwards towards the ocean surface. Warm to the touch, the deeper you bury your hands in the ashen sand, the hotter it becomes. We were not the only one's enjoying the bubbles and warm currents though, hundreds of varied aquatic species joined in the fun.
After 3 days of preparatory dives and speed sailing, we arrived at Komodo National Park. More then excited for the up and coming, "Castle Rock" dive, more appropriately named, "Shark Rock", our elation was soon muffled. The easy sailing that had blessed our journey up to that point came to an unexpected halt. Caught between strong opposing currents, neither willing to concede our boat to the other, we helplessly battled the whirlpool effect for the better part of an hour. The most frightening part was not what we could see however, it was what we couldn't see. What created these giant whirlpools came from the dark abyss below. The same dark abyss we would be descending into.
During our whirlpool wait out, our dive masters began the formal Komodo dive briefing. Explained in terms of precautions:
Precaution # 1. Never swim more then 10 feet away from the coral walls.
As mentioned before, the currents in Komodo are unpredictable and take no prisoners. If you are swept off the dive site, you will either be thrust violently downwards in a possibly inescapable down current or sucked completely off the site and further out to sea. If we did find ourselves in either of these situations, the steps were relatively simple; Inflate your BCD (Buoyancy Control Device - kind of like a quick inflating life jacket), swim diligently upwards, and upon surfacing, abort the dive. Do not, and they repeated, do not try a second descent to the dive site. You get one chance and that's it!
Precaution # 2. Do not hesitate to grab onto anything and everything if you are struggling to swim against the currents.
This precaution was the hardest to adhere to because of previously ingrained divers etiquette; "Never touch the coral!" My initial resolve, however, to abstain from touching the coral was swept away with the first formidable current. As the currents would slam into the giant coral walls, the once solitary currents would be forced to separate, sweeping dangerously past both sides of the wall. At times we were literally crawling from rock to rock fighting the currents. So, I do apologize poor coral for any harm I may have inflicted.
Precaution # 3. Always use negative entry for dive site descent. Negative Entry basically means there is no air in your BCD and the moment you break the oceanic plane, an immediate downwards swim must ensue. If you hadn't reached the dive site by the time your depth gage read 20 meters, the dive was to be aborted; you had missed the sight.
A final precaution was not really a precaution at all. Just an FYI. Since the dive masters were as much at risk as we were for these dangerous diving complications, they would not be surfacing to find a lost diver. If something went wrong, you were on your own. Reassuring huh?
You may be wondering about now, why the heck anyone would want to dive in such a forbidding place? Well, strong currents equal big fish and with big fish come even bigger fish. In landlubber terms, "If you want to play with the big boys, you have to be willing to play hard ball."
After a briefing of that caliber, not to mention escaping a whirlpool of that caliber, it would be a lie to say I felt confident going into the first Komodo dive, a trepidation mimicked by most other divers, whether they admitted or not.
As mentioned before, Castle Rock, our first Komodo Dive site, is a famous shark site. First off the boat, meant I was also first to the site. As the sun penetrates the water, beams of light reflect off every bubble, wave, and current causing disorientation and vertigo. The shallow waters are manageable but the deeper one descends, the increasingly more difficult the weightless vertigo can become.
Invisible initially, the more I swam down, the clearer the dive site wall became. Jackpot! Uh, actually, more like, sharkpot. As I sorted out my buoyancy, three white tip sharks sorted me out. Sleeping right below my fins, I was thanking my lucky stars for good buoyancy otherwise I would have landed in the middle of their bedroom. And something tells me, they wouldn't have been the most accommodating hosts.
Carefully swimming backwards, my eyes did not leave theirs, as I waited for the rest of my dive team to arrive.
Once all the divers were safely down, we lined up along a rock ledge, staring into the deep abyss. The reason for this positioning was only realized after the first visitor. A large white smile, as if the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland was emerging from the darkness, slowly moved towards us but instead of a cat tail appearing next, a fin replaced it. Shark!!
Frozen to the ledge, we watched in awe as the magnificent creature revealed itself from behind the sea's thick curtain. A large, black tip shark, circled dangerously close to our coral outcropping for what seemed like the longest few minutes of my life, before casually returning back to the deep abyss. Only our first visitor of dozens.
At one point, at least 7 white tip, reef sharks were swimming all around. Their stares were ice cold yet danced with an inquisitive light. Appearing more questioning then aggressive. Their docile swimming techniques and calculated fish feeding methods, were truly unforgettable.
The next dives were of the same caliber. Not necessarily as many sharks, but the same strong currents and over sized aquatic life. Eagle rays, Moray Eels, Barracuda, Giant Traveli's (some rivaling shark size), thousands of vibrant sea anemones and even a bed of giant clams.
Emerging from each dive, we couldn't remove our regulators fast enough. Conversation flew from person to person, re-living the face to face shark experiences, the giant trigger fish attacks, and the currents that almost took us away. Of course, each story was slightly embellished.
The diving was so mentally and physically absorbing, the Komodo Dragon portion of the trip fell to the wayside. That was, until we pulled into port at Rinca Island. Home to the Komodo Dragons, Rinca Island, Komodo Island, and a small coastal part of Flores Island, are said to be the only places on earth where they live.
Komodo Dragons are the largest living lizard in the world and can grow up to 10-feet long. Living on the islands longer then any of the native peoples, locals have learned to co-exist with the dragons, raising their homes off the ground and never walking anywhere without a stick.
Accompanied by a local guide, we set off for a Komodo spotting safari around the island. Walking through knee-high grasses and dried up river beds, if not for the guides years of expertise, we easily could have stepped right on top of them. Their skin blends so naturally into the dry, desolate surrounds that only a skilled eye can spot them.
Dating back from prehistoric time, Komodo Dragons do not hide their age very well. They look bloody old, sporting scaly skin, dinosaur-like tales, and serpentine forked tongues. What the dragons lack in looks, they redeem with a unique, modern day strut.
Similar to the tactics of a pool shark, the Komodo strut uses awkward movements and a slow dragging of their claws to appear powerless. Then, when the time is right, they strike with speed and precision.
One quick bite is all it takes to inject a lethal poison into the prey's bloodstream. From this point, 2-3 days is all the animal has left before an inevitable death. Sensing their death, animals instinctively go to the nearest watering hole and as they take their last breaths, the dragons move in. Eating everything from bones to flesh, the only body parts left are skulls and horns (which they can't crack into small enough pieces for digestion). This is exactly what we saw, only 4 days after the latest Buffalo perished at the local watering hole.
Over the course of the day we saw at least 20 Komodo's ranging in size from toddlers to full grown adults. No cages, no trainers, and no komodo trick shows, I couldn't have asked for a more real encounter with these magnificent creatures.
Returning to the Gili Islands from Komodo National Park was much quicker then the journey there. Catching favorable winds, we flew over the swell, stopping only for a few last "fun dives".
This splurge was well worth every rupiah!©
For more of "Reggie's Backpacking Chronicles" please visit her website: http://www.backpackerswanted.com