After a short flight on a propeller plane to a town called Labuanbajo on the Island of Flores we were lucky enough to jump on a three day boat tour later that day to Rinca to see the komodo dragons and then continue our journey to the Island of Lombok. After a few initial hic-ups with the oat and our cabin everything was sorted and we were on our way.
Rinca was excellent. We saw many komodo dragons and although they weren’t as big as the one we saw in Singapore Zoo they were still pretty terrifying and we didn’t want to get too close. They eat anything and everything pretty much and we were told that the rangers haven’t lost a tourist since 1974 (all they found was a camera) and I was eager not to tarnish their safety record or be on the komodo dragon menu!
We had a pleasant afternoon on the boat – bit of sunbathing, some swimming and snorkeling, turtle and whale spotting, yummy dinner etc – but just as we’re thinking ‘this is the life’ things start to go down the pan.
We were on a small boat that isn’t intended to do such a vast journey (we found this out later) and the sea was so rough that I thought we would capsize. John felt particularly ill and spent most of the evening ‘feeding the fishes’ as he likes to put it. This was only the start of our problems though. The following morning the captain fell over, cut his head quite badly and concussed himself. This happened just about the same time as the engine died and since the captain was also the engineer there was no chance of it getting it fixed. We were castaways in the Flores Sea!
Fortunately a larger boat rescued us and took us to Lombok. We missed all the days activities which was a shame but we were glad to be on the bigger boat when the sea got even rougher than the previous night. We’re looking forward to our next boat journey to the Gili Islands for a bit of Rest and relaxation after our traumatic ordeal!
|  | 
|
