Continued from yesterday”¦ There were four Komodo dragons lounging under one of the cabins. One of them was huge at least 9 feet long. They are the exact same color as the dirt, so despite being huge, they are actually kind of hard to see. Kind of like the whales in the ocean when we swam with them. The bodies look similar to a crocodile and the head looks like a lizard.
They have scaly skin that looks like Continue reading
Yesterday during the morning the ride was fine, but by mid-afternoon the wind picked up and so did the swells. The swells weren’t all that big, maybe 3 feet, but they were steep and hitting one right after another in rapid succession, creating the lurching/bucking effect we have mentioned earlier. It was uncomfortable and made for a long night.
At about 0630, we got to the first narrow area between Komodo and Rinca Islands. The water around here is known for being difficult to navigate, with strong currents, whirlpools, and over falls (breaking waves that come out of nowhere). The current was going our direction and were flying along at 10 knots for a while. The bad news is Continue reading
Last night we found four little black flying bugs in our room. They looked like they were small enough to get through the screen. Argh. This explains why we have been getting bitten when we have been so careful to use the bug spray when we go out. We have some noseeum netting aboard, which is finer meshed screen, so Eric put that on all the windows we like to leave open.
This morning was an even more upsetting Continue reading
This morning we managed to sleep through the 0430 prayers, but we were awakened at 0600 by another loudspeaker. There was an announcer of some sort talking away, with a few songs played in between his monologues. There were also short snippets of music played now and again while he talked. It sounded like there was some sort of contest going on in a carnival type setting. We begrudgingly dragged ourselves out of bed and looked out the windows. There seemed to be something huge happening along the waterfront park area. There were tons of people out and a lot of activity in an area where there was not much happening when we had been there a couple days before.
We merrily went to shore, excited about our luck to have been in Ende for this big special occasion. We were shocked to see the crew was hard at work on repairing the dock. It is Sunday. On shore, the streets had been transformed. Every single shop was open. Yesterday many had been closed. The sidewalks were completely taken over by an endless row of vendors sitting on the ground with their wares spread out around them. They were even lining the alley ways. They were selling all kinds of non-perishable goods. The street was absolutely jam packed with people and scooters.
We made our way down the street to the waterfront park where we had seen all the activity from Kosmos. As we turned the corner, Continue reading
Continued from yesterday”¦ There were a handful of tourists up there, and we were all disappointed that we missed out on the sunrise. A few left right away. We had been told that as the sun rises higher in the sky the colors continue to change from what they were at sunrise and that we should hang out for the morning instead of leaving at dawn like most of the tourists. We waited, along with a couple more stragglers, for the sun to break through. Instead, Continue reading