Komodo dragon boat trip - by Liz

After much deliberation we decided to take a four day boat trip rather than the 14 hour coach trip, we felt it would be more relaxing-drink some beer, catch some sun and do a bit of snorkelling. It started off well, we had the best people on our boat (12 passengers, 5 crew) and the one with the quietest engine. Although Nastassja did become vegetarian after we picked up live chickens on the way to the harbour. Within the first hour we had a school of dolphins following the boat, the kids drifted off to sleep with the gentle rocking of the waves and we were left up chatting and drinking beer - heaven!




Things took a sudden turn for the worse at about 3am, the waves were no longer gently rocking, we were being thrown about our communal bed, petrified - I dragged Bob and the kids onto the deck and put life jackets on us all.

The morning came and all was calm again, a swim in the crystal clear water and the beautiful coral reefs with hundreds of brightly coloured fish cheered us all up. After a few hours of snorkelling we set off on our longest journey of the trip 19 hours.




As it turned out - 19 hours of pure hell! I have never been so scared in my life, it started off fun, the waves kept crashing over the front of the boat and soaking us, the kids screamed for more and said it was like the best ever rollercoaster. A rollercoaster may be fun for 20 minutes but 19 hours on a flimsy wooden boat in the middle of a storm with giant waves was horrendous. My knuckles were white from clinging to the side of the boat, parts of which started falling off in the middle of the night; nearly all of the
passengers were throwing up or in tears (luckily our family seem to have been blessed with sailors stomachs).
The other boat that was on the trip said they watched our boat across the waves and it kept disappearing below a huge wave and they would hold
their breath till they saw us again. I am not exaggerating, this boat was not made to do a trip like that, it was terrible, at one point Oskar asked if we were going to die. Although when I suggested we sing a song to keep our spirits up I was not really impressed with Stash and Oskar's choice of song -'the day I died' by Just Jack.



The next morning came we awoke to calm and Mowie's (the chef) now familiar call of 'kopi, kopi, kopi!' ; Bob's new favourite drink of strong black Indonesian coffee (well 2nd favourite after Bintang beer). And as Mowie says, we washed the confusion from our heads with another amazing snorkel - unfortunately our waterproof camera is no longer waterproof, so soz no pics.

Dinner table:



Bed for 12:



Lovely crew:


Lovely passengers:

Location:Lombok to Flores