Indonesia boat trip: there be Komodo dragons

The Komodo dragons. The few colonies of these monster monitor lizards are on several of Indonesia’s Lesser Sunda islands, with Komodo Island itself being most well known and home to the largest of them. Incredibly, given how large they are, it wasn’t until 1912 that the Komodo dragon was recognised by science, although the locals always knew they were there. They can grow to as long as three metres and some live for sixty years. Rafe had seen a programme on these around the time we were thinking about this trip, and so they quickly went near the top of his wishlist. Who wouldn’t want to see dragons?

Komodo island itself is off the coast of the much larger island of Flores, which is about an hour’s flight east of Bali in Indonesia. The general way people get to Komodo is on a boat trip leaving the coastal town of Labuan Bajo. You can make the trip it a single day but given we had time on our side we took a three day, two night trip staying on the boat for the duration. This turned out to be a good plan as, although the dragons were epic, the snorkelling and beaches were almost as awe inspiring and we were able to spend as much time as we liked doing that too.

The Komodo dragons

We anchored offshore Komodo Island and took the tender to the jetty by the ranger station. After ticket formalities we were introduced to our guide. He came armed with a long forked stick for warding off the dragons, and a keen eye for spotting them. These carnivores are top of the food chain on the island and they eat everything from deer to birds, and also other dragons eggs. It’s also not unknown for them to eat each other and each others young – they are recognised cannibals. While being bitten is bad enough, it is actually the bacteria they secrete into their victim that kills it some days later. The komodo dragons can run fast, but adults can’t climb trees. This led to a mix of amusement and concern amongst our team as we were instructed to run in a zig zag and climb a tree if a dragon gets after you! Running into the sea also wouldn’t help as they can swim five hundred metres to catch their prey who take to the waves in desperation.

There are north of 1500 dragons on the island but most live out in the hills, with only around 45 living in proximity to the ranger station. Historically there have been three males for every one female in the population, however this is determined by the temperature of the eggs so climate change could alter this balance with warmer conditions increasing the number of females.

We set out with our ranger on the forest trail and learned plenty of interesting facts about the dragons. Along the way we saw an egg laying nest (which they tend to steal from the ground dwelling and gloriously named Megapode bird), and a hole in a river bank where they sleep. Some white dragon poo was made up of calcium from the bones of a recent victim – other poo colours are apparently available indicating other foods.

Coming to the forest edge and onto the beach the dragons were spotted. First, a young female sheltering in the shade under one of the beachside ranger buildings. And then another also taking the shade of a beachside bench. Much nearer the water’s edge we came across the highlight of our visit – a monster male dragon likely to be around 45 years old and a good three metres long. Despite the ranger’s cautionary tales, we were allowed surprisingly close for photos etc, though one always felt there was an undercurrent of potential aggression there on a hair trigger.

Overall a tremendous, unique experience which we all enjoyed while learning a lot about the dragons and the ecosystem on the island. The visit was topped off by the spotting of a large sea turtle coming up for air in the bay near our boat.

Snorkelling off Pink Beach and Kelor, Menjerite and Kanawa Islands

That might sound like a lot of snorkelling, but each of these areas had quite different undersea corals and fish species. And they were all absolutely staggering. So many fish of all types and colours as well as corals and starfish, it really was like swimming in a tropical aquarium. Quite often I could hear the scraping as the fish scratched away at the coral with their teeth. We all got stuck into the snorkelling with Dessa taking some time to gain her confidence, first starting from the beach before moving on to launching from the boat. She was certainly hooked at Kanawa Island as she was able to swim through a big shiny shoal. We took a lot of photos and endless video of the undersea life, but we will spare you all but a few pictures here.

Pink Beach is just a little pink by the way, on account of the ground up coral, mainly white but with some red coral to give an overall pink hue.

While we snorkelled Helen made the short walk up the hill behind the beach on Kelor island.

Padar Island

It was here that we paid our Komodo national park visitors fees before making the walk (I hesitate to say ‘climb’, it’s not a climb really) up the main peak of Padar Island. It is however reasonably hard work due to the heat. Odessa led the way, bounding up like a gazelle to the highest point where the path ends. Although a short walk it was definitely worth doing as the views from up there were incredible, stretching all the way back to Bajo and beyond. It was also a great vantage point to see a good number of sea eagles circling looking for dinner.

The flight of the Kalong Island flying foxes

We had been told that every evening as the sun sets, the flying foxes emerge from the mangroves of Kalong Island to head to the mainland to eat the berries there. So we anchored up just off the island there. I must admit I expected to just see a bat or two flying overhead. How wrong I was! An initial small flurry turned into a continuous stream rising from the mangroves and passing overhead as the sun continued to set. They were big too, and Dessa was particularly happy to see that some had the very distinctive bat-like wing shape in black in contrast to the darkening sky. Very reminiscent of Gotham’s signal to call for Batman.

Diving off the boat

It would be easy to underestimate how much fun was had doing this seemingly simple thing over and over again. Every time we anchored anywhere the cry went up (often from Rafe) to ask if it was OK to jump over the side. We went from all levels of the boat including on many occasions from the roof some three stories up. Several times Rafe and Jim not only jumped off the boat, but eschewed the tender – instead swimming the several hundred metres to the beach. No part of the boat went unjumped.

As well as jumping off the boat, hanging out on the boat was pretty good too.

Labuan Bajo

Labuan itself is primarily to be billed as the jumping off point for the boat trips, not just to go to Komodo but also a lot of scuba diving trips set out from there. We really liked the vibe of this town and felt it was underrated in its own right. The vast majority of visits are there either for a snorkelling / Komodo boat trip, scuba diving or on their way to one of the out of town beaches. Although not really remote, the extra effort required to get there means there’s a relatively small tourist crowd. It’s compact with a couple of main streets packed with bars, cafes, restaurants etc and a pleasant marina to walk along. If we had known we would have planned in an extra couple of days here to just lig about bar hopping and taking in the atmosphere. The various beaches and small resorts along the coast and on various islands also looked great for a longer beach holiday.

Of the places we did have time to visit, we had a great breakfast burrito at the cafe of Blue Marlin Dive (one of the few places that seemed open around 8am), a tremendous but pricey (probably one of the more expensive places in town) lunch at the Copper Bonnet, excellent Italian at Cucina and drinks, snacks and live music at 101 Barrique.

How we did it

We took a short flight from Bali (DPS) into Labuan Bajo (LBJ) airport – the other option is a laborious and indirect ferry ride. The airport was opened in 2015 spawning a new wave of tourism. The only highlight of the flight was the quite ‘sporty’ standard approach into the airport over and between several large hills, which offered us a close up view of the islands jungle interior below. It’s a cheap eight minute ride from the airport to town. There was a small group of friendly locals offering rides just outside the terminal.

As for the boat trip. We booked this over whatsapp with Dodi at Bintang Komodo Tours. We payed a little more to commandeer the whole boat, crew and guide for the three days, but it meant we could be flexible in route and timing based on what the kids wanted to do (mainly diving off the boat a lot). The food, crew and guide were all excellent.