The Seven Seas News - April 2014

Komodo March 2014 - Trip Report by Riona Freeman

Photos by Behnaz Afsahi & Jeff LaFrenz, Kinetic Balance Photography

It is day 2 of our cruise and this morning we started out with a surface tour of the National Park at Rinca. It was amazing. Just at the 'gate' of the park was an actual live Komodo dragon waiting for us! My first 'in the wild' dragon! It was almost like it was planned. There was another on the flats - much larger and painted with a light stripe. Those dragons deemed overly aggressive are identified this way so as to warn rangers and tourists. Further on we saw many more of the reptiles. They are just like the pictures and stories I have seen as a kid. I couldn't believe that after all these years I was here at Komodo Command Central! How cool is that!

The park ranger told us about how the dragons were out and about right now, looking for places in the sun so they could bask and warm up their bodies to be ready to hunt. Apparently they have been very active lately and we saw a lot of them. The rangers carry large staffs with a V notch at the bottom to pin a komodo down if they get too close. In the last couple of years, 4 rangers and one woman from a nearby village (Rinca is sparsely inhabited) were bitten by dragons. The local people will not kill the komodo - as they are tied up in the mythology of these islands. The myth is that a princess gave birth to twins - one human, one dragon. She raised the human male at home and hid the female dragon in the forest. One day the now adult son was hunting and killed a deer. Before he could get to his prey the dragon came out and took it from him. He was about to kill the thief when his mother appeared to him in an apparition, telling him to look after his twin. Henceforth the humans have not hunted them.

On our walk we found a dragon's nest. It used to be a wild hen's (orange footed scrub fowl) nesting area (they make these elaborate tall dirt hills as nests and incubate their eggs using rotting vegetation instead of sitting on them (probably because they don't want to be an easy meal). The dragons took it over though and now lay their eggs there. The eggs take 9 months to hatch and then the young ones are on their own. They instinctively climb up trees - mostly to prevent becoming lunch for their parents - where they spend several years, eating bugs, birds and anything else they can find. Eventually, around 2 years of age, they will start venturing down to the ground to feed on the adult leftovers. By three, they become too large and lose their ability to climb.

Another morning we awoke to find ourselves moored in a spectacular location off the south coast of Komodo Island. We were here specifically to see the giant manta rays, diving at a place called The Alley, where manta rays come to be cleaned and to feed when the conditions are right. If you hover at 30 feet, they usually can be found either feeding above you or resting at the cleaning stations below. However, just because they frequent places doesn't mean they are guaranteed to show up when you do! As our cruise director, Karl, said, 'they don't put the name of the animal on the dive site (eg. Manta Alley) because they aren't always there'! We had to try but our expectations had been "managed".

We arrived by tender to the dive site and there were no rays spotted at this time. We jumped in the water and, descending to the first deep cleaning station, we bobbed around at 80' watching anxiously into the deep and above us in case some happened by. After about 8 minutes, our dive master, Irwan, tapped on his tank to draw our attention and sure enough, a big ray it was. However, it was also a wary one and it passed by not coming very close. Heartened by that encounter, we swam forward into the actual alley - a moderately wide space about 200' long between the little island and a submerged rock. It seemed like the entire area was one big cleaning station. We passed enormous bump headed parrot fish - each at least 70 lbs - as well as trigger, unicorn, surgeon and parrot fish. We also saw a couple blue spotted sting rays and the various wrasses and other cleaning fish that look after the hygiene of the bigger ones.

I decided to sit out the night dive that day in favor of happy hour. As dusk turned into night, I could see the myriad of stars making up the Milky Way. The only lights in the area are from the boat and from the lower deck. We picked out the Southern Cross and, being from the other hemisphere had a short and unfulfilled discussion on how one can determine south from it. In the mean time a brown bat was skimming the water just off the gunwales of the boat, hunting its dinner and after the night divers returned, we ate a hearty supper ourselves of steak, potatoes and salad with a delicious cream filled pastry dessert. Any thoughts of losing weight on this trip have definitely gone overboard!

Later in the trip, we moved to the north part of Komodo Island near Gili Lawa Laut, diving at the Fish Bowl in the morning. We descended onto a sandy slope and were almost immediately greeted by large numbers of garden eels, a couple black tipped reef sharks and a blue spotted stingray. Large bump headed parrotfish, huge Napolean wrasses and schools of fusiliers, small barracudas and surgeonfish circled the inner 'bowl' as we hugged the edges, which were built up with hard and soft corals and filled with their usual denizens. We slipped into a short alley and anchored ourselves to the sandy bottom, reclined back and watched the huge giant trevallies and drummers hover above us in the strong current. When it was time to leave we exited back into the main thoroughfare and were quickly caught up in the 'shot-gun'. The current here was very fast and trying to hug the left side, we were whipped through at amazing speed. Expecting this from the briefing, we were able to keep close to the floor and tried to avoid getting caught in the middle of it. It was very exhilarating! An Indonesian rodeo under water. Yee haw! Once back on board the tender, everyone heartedly agreed that this dive was definitely in our top 5 dives - ever!

The next one was an easy drift dive. We dropped in onto a pristine reef and slope where the brilliant white sand contrasted very well with the buildups of coral and fish. It also helped reflect the sunlight and as the dive was shallow, the colors were great. A nice and easy dive this was, the current being lazy but enough to keep you moving along. We saw clown triggerfish and many different kinds of anemone fish - some black and white instead of the usual orange and white. One very disgruntled female (the largest of the group in an anemone) came right up to Lloyd's mask to tell him that his kind were NOT wanted in this neighborhood. There were table corals filled with damsels of every size and color. Schools of blue streak wrasse circled overhead like flocks of birds. We saw a largish reef shark swimming in the blue deeper waters. Someone found a friendly octopus that was more curious than put off by the horde of people that quickly surrounded him. I found a large crocodile fish (2-3') and got close enough to see the lacy eye covering they use to filter light and hide their eyes from their prey. A shrimp goby and his pal didn't mind me but I got tired just watching that little shrimp haul his size of sand out from their hole. There were small lionfish and large gobies (I saw one that was about 6" long whereas they are normally no bigger than my pinkie). The water was blue and clear and it was a very peaceful quiet dive (well, except for the wrestle to get a good spot to see the octopus).

After the last dive in Komodo, we emptied the tenders of our dive stuff and they were hauled onto the deck using small cranes. We were away within an hour and are on our way to the north end of Flores Island where we would be doing a nature hike in the morning. Excellent progress at 8-8.5 knots shortened our travel time considerably. We also took on a stowaway - a booby took up residence on our crow's nest. Apparently come evening they settle down where ever they can. I hope this guy was planning to go visit family or friends on Flores. I guess 100 miles isn't that far, as the booby flies.

And then suddenly it was there, our final day and night aboard the Seven Seas. We awoke on our way to an atoll about 15 miles off the coast of Flores where Karl had planned our final two dives. We were in the boats by 7 AM and we descended in the blue beside a wall and then we drifted quite leisurely along with occasional glances seaward to look for the larger sea creatures spotting a very large eagle ray soaring along. The wall itself had a plethora of interesting things to see - Lloyd found the biggest moray we have seen to date. There were lots of purple anthias and streamers as well as emperor angelfish, goatfish, yellow streaked and blue streaked fusiliers circling around on the outer slope and a school of large trevallies disappeared off in the distance. Many lobsters were found in this dive spot and some Lori's anthias which according to Karl are relatively unheard of in these parts. Convict blennies were very plentiful here as well. At the end of the drift we hung out at the top of the reef and immediately spotted scorpion fish, a blue spotted ray and several fire dart fish. I could have spent quite a bit more time out in this part of the world as the bright sun was streaming through and the light quality was excellent.

Back on board the Seven Seas, it was time to prep our gear for packing and getting ready for tomorrow's travel day. After quickly getting things ready to dry we then had to get ourselves ready for an afternoon on land! We went into Maumere town and transferred to a couple of vans (air-conditioned the modern way) to make our way to a small village where they showed us traditional dances, some local rites and finally how the ikat is made. Ikat is an interesting textile, made traditionally from locally raised cotton. They spin it into thread and then tie it up with reeds into a pattern. The thread is then dipped in natural dyes (tumeric for yellow, some root for red and indigo for blue) and then they weave it into the cloth. It is crazy intensive work and often it takes three months or more to make enough for a sarong. Of course the individual patterns have meaning, women of a certain age can only wear certain symbols and the men generally wear plain blue un-patterned cloth for their sarongs. Eventually we went 'shopping' here of course, and I bought a fabulous cloth - big enough for a sarong although I might repurpose it for another use - for what I think is an excellent price. Plus I met the woman who spent 3 months of her life making that!

We eventually made our way back to the vans and back to the boat, to settle up our final tab (pop and beer) as well as pack up for our trip out tomorrow. Sigh… We leave extremely early tomorrow and I am quite sad. Fortunately we aren't going home just yet. But it will still be too soon!

Already our group members are planning their next trip on the Seven Seas but decisions have to be made - Raja Ampat? East of Flores? There are many options and I am sure there will be great diving and sightseeing on any of them.

Thanks to the crew of the Seven Seas for making a truly unforgettable trip. Truly a holiday of a lifetime!

Riona Freeman

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