Here be dragons and whirlpools! - Rinca and Komodo islands

Here be dragons and whirlpools! - Rinca and Komodo islands

As I kid I was left wide-eyed at sailors' legends I read: of monsters and whirlpools dragging men and boats down into the abyss, and uncharted regions of old maps labelled only with, “Here be dragons”. When I read there were ‘real’ dragons roaming on Komodo Island, somewhere exotically east, I vowed that one day I'd go and see them. Twenty-odd years later, and after a 9 day journey west across Flores, Indonesia, I finally was on a small, chartered boat bound for Rinca Island, reputed to have more of these mythical 'dragons' on neighbouring Komodo Island.

The scenery was breathtaking as we chugged towards Rinca, and perfect for building excitement and suspense of what we (myself, Rob and Parisian-Moroccan Manu) may see. The boat weaved us between numerous uninhabited islands of 100 metre diameter, some flat, tree-topped atolls and others grassy volcanic cones, all fringed by coves of pristine yellow sand and turquoise water patched with dark clumps of coral reefs hiding unseen natural treasures. The hills leading off south of Labuanbajo were grassy with occasional tall trees, so different to the lush-forests smothering the rest of Flores's peaks and the largest expanse of grass I've seen since leaving Britain 15 months ago. The only evidence of human tampering were the occasional shoreline clusters of wooden, stilted huts and narrow-hulled fishing boats with elaborate horizontal riggings to hold their bamboo stabilisers in place and support the weight of dark-skinned fishing boys dangling legs just above the bow wave.

Typical fishing boat and unspoilt scenery of SW Flores

Pulling up to Rinca's rickety wooden pier, the only thing stirring and breaking the silence was the lapping of water against our coasting boat. But for this pier, the vista was untouched by Man. I had a photo taken between the 'Komodo National Park' and No shooting, No fires signs, whilst Rob went ashore to pee just beyond the national park wooden gateway. His urgent-sounding cursing had Manu and I dash to the pier end to come face-to-face with a 2m long Komodo dragon, hidden in the shade from our sun-dazzled eyes and its tail near Rob's leg in peeing stance. It didn't flinch but eyed us emotionlessly, scarily giving no indication of its next idea or movement. Our boatman scurried to us with a long and forked end pole that he held by the lizards sensitive snout end, as we tiptoed behind him and onto the path to the national park office. 1-0 to us after carelessness and good fortune.

Copy, paste, then zoom in to play ‘spot the longer-than-me ‘dragon’’

After paying 60, 000 rupiah (4 quid) each for national park entrance, camera license and 2 hour guided hike on the island, we met our guide at the stilted rangers' building. We were lucky with our timing, as on 1st May the government is introducing a $15 entrance fee for Rinca. Tomorrow the boatmen, rangers and tourism-related workers are all demonstrating against it, fearing its off-putting effect on backpacker numbers already dramatically reduced since the Bali bombs.
In the shade under the rangers' building lay 4 more Komodo dragons. The shortest (1 metre) waddled off on our approach, but the big 3 (the Daddy over 3 metres long) remained and watched us suspiciously, not twitching until the guide, to my objections, prodded one in the face with a pole. Even then it hardly moved. I remember other travellers commenting on seeing dragons here that appeared drugged, presumably so tourists see at least a couple of these magnificent beasts. I hope not! Our guide explained they are not fed by humans and are free to hunt, as they do despite the broken legs (some certainly were pointing in directions unnatural for limbs) they sustained fighting. Hmmm......

On our 5km hike we passed first through forest, along muddy stream beds bearing buffalo hoof prints (water buffalo were introduced to be Komodo dragon fodder) and a dragon nest site: a mound of earth with many burrows dug by the mother-to-be to confuse any hungry cannibal (Komodo dragons also eat komodo dragons) before she laid her clutch of 15-30 eggs in one. After hatching, the baby dragons fend for themselves in the trees for their first 5 of 50 year lifetime, catching insects and geckoes and avoiding being eaten by hungry adults. Nothing stirred as we hiked except tiny geckoey lizards scuttling away from the path across dead leaves. The Komodo dragons and their dodgy cousins: vipers, cobras and green snakes were sensibly shading from this fierce, 11am heat and sun. Only mad dogs and English/Frenchmen.....!

After exiting the tree cover into savannah, we walked up a grassy hill in stifling heat, offered only occasional shade by tall palm-like trees and outcrops of dazzling white and sugary sandstone (surprising to see after weeks of seeing only dark volcanic extrusions or bleached coral). The climate of Komodo and Rinca is comparable to central Australia in rainfall and temperature, from where its hot winds originate; it was 35oC today and gets up to 43oC in December. As far as the horizon in every direction, we could see nothing man-made, other than the foot-wide dusty track we were following back towards the mudflats.
It was near here that a Swiss tourist who came without a guide was killed and presumably eaten by dragons, the only evidence of his presence here being his found crucifix necklace and camera. Earlier this year a guide was bitten by a dragon as he slept in the cafe. He went to hospital and recovered from his bite wound and the infection introduced in the dragons' saliva that kills the buffalo and horse prey a few weeks after their being bitten during an ambush, to then be smelled from kilometres away and guzzled up soon after. Several scavenging dragons can polish off a water buffalo carcass, and a single 2 metre dragon can eat a 4okg deer or wild pig in 1 meal. The guide also informed us that Komodo dragons can run 18 k.p.h if necessary, so if being chased we should run in a zig-zag line that the dragons find difficult to turn along: something we informed him he should have mentioned an hour earlier!

Typical Rica vista

After a visit to the cafe to buy novelty sew-on badges and mini wood-carved dragons (surely I'm excused doing so at a place like this), we strolled unguided back to the pier to find 2 Komodo dragons, both over 2 metres long, lying in the shade crossing our path. Our boatman didn't hear our calls to be 'rescued' and so we had to quickstep then jump over the larger one's tail and dash a couple of metres along the pier. Thankfully, the dragons are docile at this heat of day, being active only before 10am and after 5pm. The boatman then came and shrieked like a young girl as he prodded the great lizard in the eye with his protection pole, to my objections. I thought the point of this UNESCO national park is to protect and conserve the endangered animals (only 3400 remain)?

The small one blocking our path to the boat

Sailing back to Labuanbajo, we stopped at an uninhabited island for a spot of snorkelling: amazing brain-like and black-spined coral masses, and colourful fish nibbling on and hiding among them. There were a handful of spiralling eddies of tea-cup diameter that I couldn't really justify calling whirlpools. Not compared with what was to come.
Labuanbajo looks perfectly picture postcard from the sea with its colourful buildings, simple fishing boats out front, green hills directly behind and small sandy coves at the flanks. Pity about the abject squalor and poverty: children and chickens running by open sewage channels and living in shelters on the stony shore between stilts supporting platforms of reeking dried fish.

Pretty Labuanbajo

28th April. On the first leg of a 35-hour journey to Gili Trawangan, off Lombok, our ferry sailed past a sharp line on the sea between two markedly different textures of water, as it rounded the NW tip of the vast Komodo Island. Shoreside, the water was smooth and light blue, perhaps kept still by underlying coral reef below, whilst deepwater side the water was a deep-sea blue and choppier. And along this kilometre-long line were numerous whirlpools, each 10 metres or more in diameter, inside larger areas of slow rotating water. Although these whirlpools were not spinning very vigorously, I'd not fancy making that crossing in the small boat we chartered to Rinca the day before. And considering the terrible reputation of Indonesian ships - almost every Westerner I met between Kuala Lumpur and Timor "Oooh"ed concernedly if I mentioned I was taking/had taken several ferry journeys between Indonesia's islands - I was a little relieved this particular rustbucket was chugging away from this whirlpool zone.

A couple of the numerous 10 metre diameter whirlpools; NW Komodo Island behind

The last 24 hours were certainly an experience straight out of maritime folklore, and I was left pondering what my forefathers would have made of such a trip, and how they'd have narrated it without the help of blogs and digital cameras. I can see how such natural wonders became the legends that lured me here.

From here, I’m finishing off my Indonesian visa on Gili Trawangan and a last night in Bali, before heading to Cambodia and legendary temples…