Today was a big day - it is the day I got to see the world’s largest living lizard, the Komodo dragon! I think that everyone on the ship has been looking forward to this, and we were not disappointed. We visited Komodo National Park, where the dragons can roam in their natural habitat. We went on hikes with three park rangers assigned to each group. These rangers carried forked sticks to fend off any dragon that got irritable with us, including one called Danger who has bitten two people. The dragons we saw weren’t all that interested in us so we were able to get reasonably close to them, but a couple would raise their heads with a gleam in their eyes and that was our clue to step back! The ones we saw were about 9 feet in length, so they are big boys. They had some nasty looking claws, and a couple were extending their long forked tongues, trying to smell if we would be something interesting to eat. Thankfully, they decided we weren’t.
After a very hot trek in the sun at the park and another shower before lunch, it was a huge relief to go snorkeling off Pink Sand Beach, so named for the coral fragments that give the color to the sand. I have to admit that I was a bit nervous about going out, seeing as I don’t know how to swim, or even float, but I am so glad I did. I put on the life jacket that I brought with me and I had no problem. We glided over the extremely colorful, healthy coral beds and saw an incredible variety of fish, including the elegant black, white and yellow Moorish Idol and many others such as wrasse, anenome fish, angel fish and the well-named parrot fish. It was quite a wonderful experience and I can’t wait to go again. The only drawback is that when I took off my swimsuit bottom, it had enough sand in it to build a small castle! So back to the shower to see if I could extract the fine sand from my bottom!