Loh Buaya
Dawnbreaker
Lars Alfredson
Sat 13 Apr 2019 11:33
Rinca Ranger Station.
When we left Riung we had a small mishap when pulling up the anchor. The roller in the front broke off and disappeared into the sea. We tied up the anchor and decided to repair in daylight.
An uneventful night of motoring until we neared Labianbajo where we would try and find a mooring bouy for repairs to the anchor roller.
Half an hour before reaching the anchoridge we where approached by a small boat that wanted is to stop. It turned out to be the Customs doing a flying inspection.
This really got our hearts pumping as we are not cleared in to Indonesia and have no visas.
Everything turned out well in the end, they searched the boat checked our papers and gave us more with stamps on. Then they wished us a good trip and went after an Australian boat.
We proceeded to Labuanbajo (8:29.11S 19:52.47E) and found a mooring bouy. Fixing the anchor roller took us an hour and then we went to the town for lunch and shopping.
Labuanbajo is a tourist town with lots of hotels, dive shops and restairants. Hundreds of tourist boats anchored in the bay outside.
We decided to move on in the afternoon to Loh Buaya so we could go and watch the Dragons early in the morning when they are most active.
Sunday morning at 07,00 we took the Dinghy to the Ranger station. We were the first visitors of the day. When we walked the track to the station we were met by two big Dragons walking towards us. A guide helped us out by pushing them with a stick so they turned around.
We took a one hour walk around a track and saw lots of Varans and also monkeys, deers and water buffalo. There is about 1500 Dragons around the area. Amazing!
We had been told that our tickets were valid at the other place with dragons on Komodo Island so after a swim and a cold one we moved on. Anchored outside the Ranger Station on Komodo Island for an early visit the next day.
When we got there on Monday morning we were told that our tickets, 1.4 million rupies, were not valid. We left the place after checking out a Dragon chasing a couple of deers on the beach.