June 28, 1997

Labuhanbajo

In the fishing village of Labuhanbajo, I have been organizing plans for a three day boat cruise to Lombok. The trip will leave tomorrow with a stop at Rinca and Komodo Island for wildlife viewing. The main attraction are lizards-four metre, 130 kg lizards, appropriately known as Kimono dragons. The dragons are carnivores. Normally they eat deer and wild pigs which are found on the island. However, man could easily be consumed by the dragons. The Kimono dragon is on the endangerd species list. The only place in the world these dragons can be found is on Rinca and Komodo Islands. On Flores around Riung there is a cousin of these dragons but they are seldom spotted. Looking forward to seeing this massive lizards in their natural habitat.

June 30, 1997

On The Boat Trip

After visiting the island this morning we stopped at Red Beach for snorkeling, swimming and freshening up. While having lunch we waited for our bigger boat that we were to transfer onto. My god has the captain been drinking Bintangs or what? He rammed our bloody boat! After transfering boats we sailed on. Later in the afternoon we came across some dolphins who swam all around the boat, it was a beautiful sight.

Trevor Thomas of The Dive Institute, on boat at the bar.

At dinner time the waves started rolling backwards and forwards. The sky grew darker and the faces of the passengers started to change colors in varying shades from white to green. Dinner involved a great deal of good balance. After dinner we amused ourselves with a game of holding coins between our buttocks and walking to a cup, the object of the game is for all four coins to be dropped from your flexed cheeks into the cup. The score on the white board grew as the night progressed for the number of spews and the loss of bowel control. We awoke in the morning to beautiful sunshine and calm seas. Another day in paradise is going to be so hard to take.

Best Regards from Kylie Mudford of Tasmania, Australia