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June 14, 2010: Boating through Komodo National Park
Day Four
After the events of last night, we are all feeling great with the vibe on the boat being one of warmth and camaraderie. And today has been one of the best days of the dive trip so far. We woke to a beautiful sunrise and jumped in for a 6:30 a.m. dive. The site was one of the best I had seen in a long time with sharks, lion fish, sea turtles, loads of everything really. After the dive and breakfast of pancakes and cookies, we anchored and swam about the ship. Or rather, we anchored and jumped off the ship. A couple of folks jumped off the top mast. I about lost it just jumping from the low mast.
After that, we did another dive—the best of our lives. It was a giant manta ray cleaning station where the mantas (twenty to thirty feet wide) literally cruise in, park in a sea valley, and let the other fish come and clean them. They open their mouths as if they are in a dentist chair, settle, and in come the fish to clean. Adam and I had never seen
a giant manta ray, and on this dive alone we say eighteen! You had to lie down on the sand and just hold on to whatever you could: coral, rock, each other. And then watch. One manta ray swooped right over top of me so close I could have touched him. Such weird eyes that look straight into you. And they come in from out of the ocean blue in single file, ghostly white on the underside, black on top.
We then dove the famed Castle Rock. I had first not wanted to even do this trip because the diving there can be rough. You drop down in a negative entry and have to get down within a few seconds or you’ll be swept off the dive site. Once down, you hold on and watch the world go by. We were lucky and the currents were calm, so it was simply beautiful everything: coral, nudibranches, rays, sharks, and all those brilliant fish.
June 16, 2010
We are now land-lubbers again. The boat landed in Labuanbajo tonight and that was the farthest east it went, so we had to get off. People kept saying the live-aboard was the
“adventure of our lives.” That’s a hard thing to live up, too (how do you qualify that anyway?), but it was damn close.
One thing that Adam and I were talking about is how we saw plenty of lovely yachts going by us, but in the end, we loved our not-so-elegant wooden boat with the uninhabitable cabins (roaches and fuel fumes), bum guns for salt-water showers (we just didn’t shower for five days), and rain on our faces waking us up at night as we scrambled to find a dry spot to sleep—which was an impossibility. There is always this tendency to go “nice” but that’s rarely as fun. It might be more comfortable, but other things happened that were great because of the lack of amenities. I loved everyone pulling out their mats and sleeping nursery-school style on the deck. And honestly, sleeping on top of the deck with the stars above and waking up to the sunset were some of the best moments of my life. It was fun to look over and see fellow travelers Justin, Meghan, and Fred doing the same, everyone quiet. Just looking up. The meals were also rather okay, always a big
pot of rice and some curry or soup. But I loved that, too, and how no one was treated “special.” You had one choice. Eat it or don’t.
So, now we are in this town to stock up on some needed supplies and figure out our next move. I’ve had a sinus infection this past week, so getting some antibiotics sounds like a treat. (I’m glad I could still manage to dive, especially to 90 feet like we were doing.) It would be good to fully hear again. And we want to try to get to this other region, Sulawesi, to explore more inland stuff but we aren’t sure how often planes or ferries leave. We just heard once a month from someone. That would not be good. And the power just went out which I also heard can happen for stretches of ten days at a time. Hmm…. We shall see where we go next.
Tips for bloggers:
*In Labuanbajo, we are staying in a lovely spot with wonderful views of the harbor: Bayside Hill Views. We are paying $40 US per night, air con, great views, yummy breakfasts that they bring to your balcony. It is
a splurge after the days on the ship.
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