Rinca, Indonesia

February 27, 2024 - Today we anchored offshore of Rinca, one of the 3 large and 26 small islands that make up Komodo National Park. This part of the park has many of the world famous Komodo Dragons, which are the largest lizards in the world. In addition, the park has many water buffalos, wild pigs, salt water crocodiles and many snakes. Cathy was at the tail end of a cold and opted not to take the tender ride over to see the lizards — as she didn’t want to be coughing on the small enclosed boats. And there was no option to go ashore and explore on your own. You could only go ashore as part of a tour group, and you had to stay with the three rangers guiding your group at all times. In fact, during the port talk, they told anyone with an open wound or women with their period to stay close to the guides as they have a keen sense of smell for blood. Comforting right!

It was a hot and sunny day so Ann Marie went armed with multiple bottles of water and a hat. Many people took their large red Viking umbrellas with them to shade them from the sun, but as you can imagine this created a whole different hazard with 30 people on a group walking tour when half had large umbrellas. It was the middle of the day while we were there, which is not ideal as the lizards preferred the shade as much as we did. So despite the fear that may have existed after the port talk telling people to stay close to the guides, most of the lizards we saw were asleep in the shade. We did see one young one moving, very slowly. And we did spot a few, and some of the wild buffalos. All were living in peace while we were there but the water buffalos and the Komodo Dragon’s own young are the prey when they are ready to eat — which is about once a month. It was only a one hour walking tour but that was a bit too much for some people in the heat, and we did have two people that were quite overheated and sick on the tender ride back to the boat. The moral of the story is to stay hydrated!!!.