Komodo Islands - Here Be Dragons

Current Date: 18th October 2025

Current Location: Waicicu Beach, Labuan Bajo, Flores, Indonesia

Today's blog is bought to you by daughter Emma who has been staying on board with us for the past two weeks. Her partner Chris joined us for the second week. We had a blast. Thanks guys.

The Holidaymakers.

EMMA'S BLOG

The first thing that hit me as I came out of the tiny Komodo airport at Labuan Bajo was the humidity and heat, the second was one very excited mother! After a year and a half without seeing family, we were well overdue a reunion. Their base in Labuan Bajo is the beautiful bay off the beachside Sylvia Hotel, where they are on first name terms with the waiting staff (pineapple smoothie for you Mr John, fish and chips for you Mrs Gill) and all the boats in the anchorage. One of these boats waved a huge Indonesian flag and honked their foghorn as I dinghied to the boat – what a welcome! It was also lovely to meet Kevin and Shawna from their buddy boat, Meraki 2, who joined us on many of our adventures.

The last two weeks have been spent sailing around the beautiful Komodo National Park, anchoring in tiny bays off arid islands inhabited only by goats or deer and snorkelling in world class reefs. We’ve swam with thousands of different fish, sometimes right off the boat, as well as turtles and eagle rays! My partner Chris came out for the second week – he has never snorkelled on a coral reef before and was amazed. The sea here is so many different shades of blue. We have spent a lot of our time exploring the aquamarine of the shallow reef streaked through by sunlight, which eerily drops off to deep blue nothingness. We have also had a dose of civilization in Labuan Bajo, where we did yoga on the beach, went to a 5-star hotel for breakfast and spent a day provisioning with mum, including a trip to an amazing (and quite intimidating) local market.

Emma's happy place. Mehalah in the background.

Gilly snorkelling the reef.

But we couldn’t leave the Komodo National Park without trying to see the dragons themselves. They live on only 5 islands, but the best chance of spotting them is on Rinca Island. So, we anchored offshore of Rinca, surrounded by mangroves, and booked the early morning tour when the dragons are most active. I was actually on the fence about going, as I was worried about overtourism and harassment of the dragons. I wasn’t reassured by seeing 3 dragons lying around just outside the ranger station for ‘selfies’. But I felt much better after setting off on our 3-hour hike, where the crew of Mehalah and Meraki 2 were the only people except 2 rangers with forked sticks to keep away the dragons (direct quote: if the stick breaks, we run!). We saw monkeys, wild boar and 2 huge Komodo dragons! You really did feel like they were sizing you up for their next meal! Chris’ favourite animal was in fact, not the dragons, but hundreds of crabs waving their single red claws in tandem to attract a mate.

Guides Yeoman and Dee with forked sticks 

On safari!

The Dragon 

I know many people who read this blog are well aware of the practicalities of boat life, as they are living that life themselves. But for people like me who don’t know their forestay from their mizzenmast, I thought it might be interesting to describe what I loved and found challenging about this lifestyle. One of my favourite things is that 90% of your time awake is spent outside. My favourite time of day is first thing in the morning, when the sea is flat calm and the sun is just rising and hasn’t yet made you run for shade!  This is the only time to do any form of exercise that doesn’t involve swimming – Dad and I had some great 6am walks up to the top of islands near our anchorages. 

Early morning climb.

The summit. Father and daughter.

But, most of our activities are water based as once the sun gets up, its very hot, so a lot of time is spent in the sea or in the shaded cockpit. This has been a change for me, as I run or walk on a daily basis at home. Also, sleeping in a cabin which is around 30 degrees at night is hard for people used to the English weather! On a boat, you are very dependant on the wind (or, in Indonesia, lack of wind), which dictates not only whether you can sail, but what you can do, where you can stay and generally how pleasant an experience you have. We had one very windy day huddled in the cockpit unable to leave the boat. Although I really like boat life, everything is just that little bit harder. Want any food? You have to move everything off the surface and unpack the whole fridge. Want to go to the loo? You have to pump your water in, then out again and then remember to switch everything off again! I’m always amazed at the sheer number of jobs there are on a boat and so much that can go wrong! But, Dad amazingly always manages to fix whatever needs fixing. I’m also in awe of Mum’s ability to provision for time spent at sea. She has dry food hidden all over the boat and we have managed to make some great dinners based on ingredients picked up all over the world, supplemented with fresh stuff from the local market (on one occasion, with a side of ants…).

A new helmsman.

The idyllic Komodo Islands 

We have had the most amazing holiday and feel lucky to have seen the Komodo National Park in a way that most tourists never do. But, most of all, it has been lovely to spend time with Mum and Dad after so long, live their life for a while and hear about all of their adventures. 

Mother and Daughter.

Another crazy sunset.

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And now they're gone. Off to Java for a week before heading home to England and the world of work. Soon The Komodo Islands will be just a distant memory. But what a great couple of weeks we all had together.

And for us? We've spent today turning the holiday home back into a cruising yacht. Diesel, local market, ATM, supermarket - all the usual pre passage making stuff. Tomorrow, early in the morning we set off on the year's final push, 1,500 miles up to Langkawi on the west coast of Malaysia. What are we expecting? Not much wind, dodging poorly lit fishing nets and a change in seasons from the dry SE winds to wet NW winds. Lets hope we can make most of the passage before those NW winds kick in as NW is the direction we need to travel as we make our way up to Singapore before traversing the notorious Malacca Straits, well known in the past as pirate alley.