I finally got my viisa extension, it was dated the same day as David's and Zack's, but had for some unknown reason been held for an extra six days. Two weeks for a four week extension. I lost my shit at our supposed agent, Conrad. But, time to move forward.

We left Maumere and decided to skip the next few rally stops. We needed a bit of distance. An overnight passage of about 150 miles brought us to Gili Bodo, a tiny little island with crystal blue water and white sand beaches. The Anchorage was very rolly when we arrived, but it was late and we had nowhere else to go. We dropped the hook, got out the binoculars and watched the monkeys play on the beach. They go to the beach at low tide and eat seafood, which I thought was surprising, but I don't think there is much else for them on the small island. The next morning we jumped in for a snorkel. We spent a couple of hours in the water. It was nice but not amazing, we are difficult to impress these days! Back to the boat for a quick lunch and then onto the beach for some shelling and exploration. Zack and I kayaked in and David swam. We found lots of cool shells and had a relaxing afternoon. It was coming into low tide when we decided to head back to the boat. David swam back out and Zack and I hopped in the kayak. There is a shallow sand spot and at low tide a tiny wave ripples over it. Zack was not going to miss any opportunity to surf. He put me out of the kayak and kayak surfed the wave for an hour. Super cool.

The next morning we left early to motor 30 miles to Komodo! The winds are light here so close to the equator. The Komodo National Park is a lovely group of Islands and a beautiful place to sail. Lots of pristine white sand beaches and deserted little outcrops. We took a vote and decided to go to Komodo Island over Rindja. As Zack put it "We want to see Komodo Dragons on Komodo Island, it just sounds better.". So we pulled into Komodo. We dropped the dinghy and headed in to make a reservation to hike the next morning. We need a calendar, it was Sunday. A big no no in Indonesia. Everything is twice as expensive here on Sundays. The rangers were kind enough to suggest that we leave and go to Rindja for Monday. The best laid plans. We pulled up anchor the next morning and headed for Rindja. We went super slow so as not to pull in too early and be stuck with Sunday park fees. At one point we found a whirlpool in between the islands. We spent about an hour just sitting there while the boat spun in slow circles. Small things entertain us. We needn't have worried! the rangers at Rindja are very relaxed. We made a reservation for the next morning with two other boats. There were a couple of Dragons at the ranger's station but they were just laying about. The hike started at 7 am so we were in early. A ranger met us at the dock and we went to the station to pay and to have a briefing. The ranger basically told us not to expect to see Dragons in the wild. On Rindja they feed the Dragons at the ranger's station so you are guaranteed to at least see them. We started the hike with watching a dragon at the station. Then off for a 2 hour hike. Our first stop was at a females nest. The ranger went in to see if the dragon was there but no luck, so we kept walking. I was in the back of the pack and was looking everywhere. The rest of the group walked past but I saw momma sitting there. We stopped to watch her for a few minutes. We were feeling pretty fortunate because our friends did the hike a few days before and only saw the Dragons at the station. We hiked for another hour with little evidence of Dragons. Sort of like looking for kiwis in NZ. We did see monkeys, water buffalos and some birds. Then the excitement began! A dragon was coming down the trail towards us! We had to get off the trail to let it pass. It was crazy to watch a dragon come within a meter of us in the wild. We continued on and the ranger took us to a very large females nest that was right off the trail. She was huge! About 2 meters. She was guarding her nest and we had a great view of her. We were standing around filming her and taking pictures when the smaller male dragon that had just gone past us decided to turn around and cause a bit of mischief. He came charging at the female. Zack was in its path and had to jump out of the way as the ranger used a stick to keep the dragon moving away from us. The female came charging at the male and chased him off. The Dragons are a lumbering sort of creature so it was all kind of slow motion but still very exciting. Click on the link to watch the video, and its on Facebook. Way too cool. Zack was stoked! We were all pretty wound up and taking pictures and video of the big female. The ranger was pretty adamant that we move on. His exact words were, "We should go now, mammas still angry." I think that means we had an exceptional hike. I had asked our ranger at the beginning of the hike and he said they spotted wild komodos on average twice a week. We had 3 wild spottings! Back to the ranger station to find 7 Dragons hanging out under the kitchen hut. The ranger explained that the Dragons at the station are used to humans and they don't worry about them so much. They did seem truly frightened of the wild ones! A next " Be st day ever!" At the station there was a small gift shop and we wanted to purchase a carved dragon. The one we like was $1,500,000 Rupiah. I offered a million but was refused. We decided we would go over to Komodo to visit the village and see what we could find. We timed it wrong and had to fight 5 knots of current to get back there. We tried to anchor off of the village but it was too deep. We ended up anchored off of the ranger station. We went in to visit the local craft market on the beach. We had seen lots of carved Dragons when we had been here the other day but had not stopped to look. It was insanity. There were maybe 15 vendors and they all basically jumped us as we walked in. I have never seen anything like it. It was so intimidating we almost left. But we really wanted a carved dragon so we persevered. It was difficult to even look at what was available because the vendors were so aggressive. I found one I liked, bartered a little and got it for $500,000 Rupiah, which I felt was a really good deal. There were dragon tooth necklaces for sale and I knew Zack was keen but we were so overwhelmed that we just left. Two of the vendors chased us down the path still trying to sell us stuff. Crazy! We were almost back to the boat and Zack was a bit bummed that he didn't get a necklace. Crazy as it sounds, Zack and David went back in for a necklace. I got dropped off at the boat. I guess it is good practice though as we hear Bali and Thailand are the same. We have seen the Dragons and we are now off to Lombok to surf!