Category: Indonesia

We have had an amazing time on Labuan Bajo Island; Komodo Dragons, beautiful scenery, and superb water for diving!

We are bit short on sleep, with that 4AM morning call to prayer 🙄, so for this alone, we must get underway, again! In Singapore 🇸🇬, we hope to avoid the wake up call, and get more sleep. Here is what I researched, and we think Labuan Bajo, should take a page from Singapore’s playbook.

“There are 75 mosques in Singapore. The speakers for broadcasting the Islamic call to prayer was turned inwards to broadcast towards the interior of the mosques as part of a noise abatement campaign in 1974.”

We have been so challenged in the “electronics” department in the last few months! Seems like everything wore out at once! Daryl and I both have operating phones again, thankfully, and the big guy got a replacement iPad from Apple, recently as well, when the touch screen quit working. Then, while in Sri Lanka, my Surface Pro decided to not boot up again! I’m lost without my computer. First thing in Singapore, will get to the Apple store, there…. I’m going all Apple, now, with a new computer… then we need to find a “geek” in Singapore who can get my Microsoft computer to open, or at least transfer unseen photos from our Leopard Safari in Sri Lanka! I sure hope I haven’t lost those photos!

In the meantime, for our last day, here on the island; in the pouring rain, we made a dash for the massage place and hit up one more; two-hours of pleasure, while it stormed, and the electricity went out, then, after the storm, we topped off our evening with a repeat of the Mediterranean Restaurant we found, yesterday.

Earlier in the morning, I spent hours, finalizing our Egypt 🇪🇬 visit. We are so excited about returning to Egypt, one more time, as there is much left to see! We will spend seven glorious days on a Nile River Cruise, to explore Luxor and Aswan. Then, for Valentines Day, my love ❤️and I hope to Scuba Dive in the Red Sea. One of the most beautiful dive sites in the world!

From there, we finally make it to Turkey 🇹🇷; been trying to get there for years! In this case, I need to get a new passport, like Daryl had to in India 🇮🇳 (expiration is seven years away, but we both run out of pages way fast)!~ imagine that! So, we will need about two or three weeks in Turkey for the Embassy in Istanbul to send my application to the USA, and mail a new passport back to Embassy in Turkey.

Goodnight from the lovely Islands of Indonesia 🇮🇩

The water, coral reefs, and Marine life are fabulous in the Komodo National Park Dive spots! We suspected this would be the case, after spending our full tour day, already, in the Park by speedboat to see the Komodo Dragons, and do island hopping and snorkelling. Above the water, or under the water, it is fabulous here!

We enjoyed our three dives; each site a bit different, yet the same in visibility and beauty.

Our first dive spot was focusing on a chance to see the large Manta Ray, like we did the other day at Manta Point (from on the boat); so we went to “Mawan Island.” (a cleaning station for the Manta Ray) We did not get to see any, and visually this dive site wasn’t quite as pretty, but it was worth a shot, to try and see the Manta that are there, sometimes. The current had some areas that were very strong

Oh well, moving on, after our required surface time was complete, we did our second dive site at a place called “Tatawa Besar.” Stunningly beautiful! The coral, the marine life, the color, and the visibility. We saw Green Turtles, Black-Tip-Reef Sharks, Barracuda, and MANY colorful tropical fish variety. We also saw the largest Frog Fish ever seen by us. Usually, they are quite small and hard to see, because they blend in well with light colored coral…they are a fish, but they have feet like a frog.

Komodo Island dive sites are well known for their strong currents. Even sites that are labeled as “mildly strong” are stronger during the full moon. (it is the full moon, now). We got a workout, going against the current at this site; especially, which is always good practice for our skill set….nothing like kicking as hard as you can and not moving! I wanted to get closer to a turtle, but couldn’t lessen the gap at all, though I tried. It was also quite easy to be swept up to the surface, in a surprise current, so having plenty of weight on your belt was helpful.

After a nice rest, with a fresh, and delicious home-cooked meal; onboard, we made our way to our third and final tank-dive; three in all….. like the second dive, this site, called “Sebayur Keol” was colorful and easy on the eyes… we did not see anything beyond tropical fish, but it was quite enjoyable, just the same.

The water is very warm, we hardly ever felt any cool water flow. It’s just the way it is, here in Indonesia 🇮🇩, unless diving way deeper. We don’t dive with wet suits, anyway; shallow or deep diving~(old school of 40 plus years).

I did have my go-pro with me, so I practiced taking photos and videos. Since my computer quite working, processing those pics will have to wait till I either get my computer fixed, or replaced… we shall get a chance next week, while in Singapore 🇸🇬 to get a resolution to the computer issues

We absolutely recommend Bajo Dive Club. They are on the main road, and a five-minute walk to the harbor. We were on a large wooden boat. The boat crew did a great job, and they were excellent cooks, too! We had the pleasure of being guided by a local Master Diver, who’s been diving these waters for quite awhile. In addition, another diver, who hails from Germany; living here, and working at the dive shop to earn his Master Diver certification, was a joy to visit with. Best part of all, was being approved for the whole day out on the boat, diving, with only the two of us; three is usually the minimum. No complaints from us, on a private dive trip!

We stayed pretty shallow (45 feet on average) for all three dives, which was our lovely choice, to give us more bottom time to enjoy the scenery. The deeper the dives, the quicker the air gets used up; this means a shorter dive time. With the weather being so sunny, it was just nice to spend so much time in the water on this trip, and practicing on the tropical fish and corals, with my new water camera.