Dragons, More Monkeys and More Boat Boys - Lehok Ginggo, Rinca Island, Nusa Tenggara Province, Indonesia
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Sun 5 Sep 2010 09:42
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08:42.059S 119:39.587E
August 30th we left Labuan Bajo and motored five
hours in dead calm conditions to Rinca Island through an
area of arid, barren, yet beautiful islands filled with
craggy, russet mountain peaks. The wind was dead calm, but the water
through the narrow, deep straits between islands was anything but, swirling
around in funky current eddies and whirlpools with the occasional standing
wave popping up here and there. The highest current we saw was 4 1/2
knots. It was in our favor, and caused us to have flashbacks to
Darwin (minus the pounding waves and washing machine effect) as we were
swept along.
As we approached Lehok Ginggo, a bay on the
west side of Rinca Island and our first stop in Komodo National Park, a Komodo
dragon and several monkeys came out to greet us on the beach. By the
time we were done fiddling around with our anchor, they were gone. We
had just gotten used to the idea of an anchorage all to ourselves
when another dragon showed up followed by a monkey clan of twenty on the
beach. We jumped in the dinghy to get a closer look, but the
monkeys were not too keen on the idea of humans at close range so they
disappeared into the trees before any pictures could be taken. We always
thought monkeys would be camera hounds, but not this
bunch. The dragon didn't necessarily beg to have his picture taken as
he lumbered away from us, but he at least moved slowly enough that we got a few
shots.
It wasn't long after our dragon encounter
that two new sets of Komodo Village boat boys showed up in their
putt-putts to sell us more stuff. When we explained that we
already had more dragons and necklaces than two people could possibly need in a
lifetime, they fired questions at us concerning potential
business. "How many boats will be coming here?" "You have some
friends coming here?" "How many boats in Labuan Bajo?" "How many
coming here from there?" Then, when they weren't completely happy with our
inexact answers, they persisted, "You must buy from us." "You buy from
Evan, but now you buy from us." "We give you cheap price." "Very
cheap price." The pressure was high, but we didn't relent.
Eventually they gave up and retreated to the far corner of the bay to wait for
their next customers.
Picture 1 - Craggy, russet mountain peaks we
passed on the way to Rinca Island.
Picture 2 - Motoring through dead calm
water.
Picture 3 - The Komodo dragon. These
giant lizards reside only here. About 1,100 live on Rinca Island and 1,300
on Komodo Island. That's the whole of the world Komodo dragon
population. We feel privileged to have seen 3 of the 1,100 on
Rinca. They are a protected species and are generally not dangerous
although they have been known to attack humans on rare occasions. Evan
told us a child was bitten by a dragon in Komodo Village a few years
ago. He lived for several days, but nasty bacteria in the bite took over
and the boy died. Ugh. Generally, the dragons eat wild pigs or goats
or even water buffalo. As you can see, these lizards are big, growing up
to 9 feet. And ugly - with a bright yellow tongue constantly
flicking in and out of their mouth. Weird creatures. We stayed only
one night at Rinca and didn't venture ashore. Since we were such
disappointing customers, the boat boys probably wouldn't have saved us had
we been bitten.
Anne
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