Here be Dragons and on to Plan D!

Bamboozle
Jamie and Lucy Telfer
Fri 19 Aug 2016 00:31
08:26.783S  119:27.071E

“Here be Dragons!” was what the chart makers of yore supposedly used to put on their maps on those distant, exotic and unknown parts of the world where they were not really sure what was actually there. Fishermen and divers bought back stories of these mythical dragons with their five clawed toes, fearsome teeth and forked yellow tongues but amazingly it was not until 1910 that a Dutch expedition came to Komodo (shot two of them…obviously) and returned with the first scientific description of them. They are actually big, bad tempered monitor lizards with a venomous bite although this was only discovered in 2010, up to this point it had just been thought that the bacteria on the teeth caused fatal infection. They generally live on the abundant deer, monkeys, wild pigs and buffaloes but they are not adverse to giving humans a nasty nip given half a chance.  There are only about 2500 of them, all on the Islands of Komodo and it’s lesser known neighbour Rinca which make up a national park which is as well known for its diving and snorkelling as it’s eponymous dragons.

It deserves to be known for both, the dragons are fascinating and unique and the underwater sphere also does not disappoint with some of the most wonderful soft and hard corals we have seen anywhere outside the Tuamotus. We took a guided hike to visit the dragons, some fat and lazy looking beasts near the ranger station, which we are pretty sure are fed to keep them conveniently close but much more excitingly we also saw them properly out in the wild, roaming on the beech behind Bamboozle as we sipped our morning coffee.  The park is home to many live aboard dive boats but they tend to congregate in the most central anchorages and by hunting around a bit we have managed to find some beautiful and deserted spots. We are now anchored off the NW corner of Komodo in the most beautiful bay which we have to ourselves with great diving and snorkelling right off the boat with wild pigs and deer frequenting the beach right behind us.  We have managed to find a lovely patch of sand in amongst the bommies and this morning had the massive added bonus of swimming with Manta Rays around the boat.  We had got up early to do some outside jobs before the heat becomes too much but the work party was broken up by the sight of 2 mantas feeding within 20m or 30m of the boat…..down tools and straight into the water!

One of the reasons for this is that we are now a little bit ahead of the rally fleet, not because we were not enjoying the company but a number of other factors mean we have now decided that instead of just sailing up through Indonesia this year and finishing up in Singapore, we have decided that the time is right to head on across the Indian Ocean with Cape Town now pencilled in as our final destination in 2016 (yes …we are now on to plan D).  Bali is a great spot for us to fork left and it will hopefully give us a great slant across the trade winds to Cocos Keeling and points west.  It is a big change of plan but it just feels that it is the right time to take on the next big ocean and a September departure works well with the seasons all across hopefully allowing us to arrive into South Africa after the big winter storms and before the real start of the Indian Ocean cyclone season.  As you can imagine there has been a lot of planning and re-focusing going on aboard Bamboozle!


Armed with a big stick for chasing away naughty dragons.  I was a bit concerned when I met our guide June, as there is not much flesh on him to satisfy a hungry dragon and he looked like he could run quite a bit faster than me.

Lucy looking relaxed while telling me “to just get on with it and take the bloody picture!

Before encouraging us to get this close the guide assured us that this particular dragon had recently had a good feed.  He is pretty nifty with his camera angles as we were not half as close as this looks!


Another beautiful anchorage, this time off the island of Rinca, The french yacht in the background is also heading towards Cape Town next month so it was great to “prend un verre” with them and discuss what lies ahead.

Sunset over Komodo Island.