Early buffet breakfast and hop on to the boat for the day.
Our first stop was 'Manta Point' to snorkel with manta rays. It was a little choppy so not the best expereince - I found the current too strong so didn't last long and had a huge panic as I could see happily snorkelling off in the opposite direction! The manta's did not seem that big, compared at least with those we saw on the Ninglaoo Reef, Australia in 2000. At least the kids got a quick glimpse, but I was happy to have everyone back on board as quickly as possible!
We continued on then to Komodo Island to see the Komodo Dragons, something the boys were were very excited to do! Walking along the pier onto the island we saw a turtle - added bonus!
We had prepared ourselves for the possibility of not seeing any dragons, so we were pleasantly suprised to hear Oliver shout (quietly) "there's one!" as soon as we set foot on the island!
The island is part of a National Park so the admin staff were a little off to say the least but it turned out we got allocated two nice guides to escort us around. They lead us along the beach first and had multiple Komodo sightings. We were just 10 feet away from them, with no barrier - crazy!
We also saw multiple deer that were happy to see us and not a dragon! We headed off on an hour trek with our rangers but unfortunately no more dragons - everyone was happy though.
We did see an injured baby deer on our walk back, so torn to know what the best thing to do was. The ranger decided he wanted to take it back to the office instead of leaving it to the hog that had injured it and ready we assume to eat it. I actually think, after the fact, that we should have left nature toke its casue. At the end of the day, it's not a zoo, it's a natural environment where animals eat each other to survice. But seeing that helpless baby deer against a huge hog I was ready to bring it home with us! The poor muma was making noises, it was so upsetting. We had to leave but the ranger took the baby to the office to help it....
Back to the boat, another island for lunch and snorkel, another attempt at manta snorkelling and then back to hotel, quick shower, dinner, bed.
Update on 2016-09-08 14:52 by Sean Reynolds
A few pics from our day around Komono and surrouding Islands...
