Komodo National Park - Mantas and Dragons

At 7 o'clock this morning, we were at the dive school. There were 5 divers with Daniela and I was the only snorkeler :-)!

We walked through the harbor to our boat! It was a great boat, the upper deck was equipped with big fatboys, where you could relax very well:-)!

We drove to the national park for about 1 1/2 hours. On the way, we saw turtles and dolphins! Shortly before the first dive, the group was briefed. The divers should pay attention to the currents! I was shown where I could stay and all of them were already in the water and disappeared below me. It was a gigantic reef with amazing coral in xxl format. The fish were also very colorful and unusually big! I could observe some turtles and then I had enough of the first snorkeling. The divers arrived on board 15 minutes after me and they were all very impressed by what they saw.

Now we had to relax for 1 hour until the next dive! The boat headed to Manta Point. I thought it would again be at a reef or on an island! Unfortunately not, the boat stopped in the middle of the sea and the divers were briefed again. They were informed about the behavior of the manta rays and sharks:-)! Well, a crew member told me to let myself drift with the current until I reach a bright spot! If I didn't feel like it anymore, just raise my arm and wave! Ouch, I was the only snorkeler around and they were talking about huge mantas + sharks! I said to Daniela that I prefer to stay on board and she should take beautiful pictures! No way, she organized a guide who snorkeled with me. It felt more comfortable to be two in the open sea. We let ourselves drift with the current and besides some big fish, there was nothing to see! My thought was, what a crap! Then a huge manta swam under us, it was so gigantic! The guide and I were fascinated by that huge creature:-)! Suddenly we were in a swarm of mantas, one of them swam right next to me. I was so startled when it touched me with its wings. The guide said to me in the water that he had never experienced anything like this before:-)! Now we just had to look out for sharks! Uh, no:-), we can call the boat, that's enough for me! The guide waved to the boat. Proudly, we reported to the crew on the boat about the many mantas we saw! There were 11 of them!

The divers arrived on board a short time later and they were a bit disappointed! One group had seen only 1 manta and the other group 2! Well, my guide and I celebrated ourselves first:-)!

After this really awesome experience, the boat headed to Komodo Varan Island! Some monkeys were hanging around at the pier, they wanted cookies or bananas from the boats! After a short walk, we were introduced to our park ranger. He told us a lot about the Komodo dragons and how we should behave! He briefly talked about a deadly attack and then we followed him. 3 varans were lying next to a hut and we were allowed to get closer to take pictures. I'm not such a big fan of the huge dragons. A miniature version is enough for me! Daniela, on the other hand, was totally excited and had her picture taken with every varan in our way! Then a gigantic water buffalo came towards us and the guide said that the varans eat them :-{! Wow, that's intense, but of course, they also eat monkeys, deer, horses, etc.!

Fortunately, we quickly finished our tour because it was extremely hot on the island.

Now we went back to the harbor for almost 2 hours! The whole group spent the time sleeping on the deck above:-)

Best regards from us:-)