We left Bali and flew into Labuan Bajo on Asia Air. We were surprised when our flight attendant broke out his acoustic guitar and sang Memories by Maroon Five into the loud speaker and followed up with an encore performance of What's Going On by 4 Non-Blondes. Everyone pulled out their ear buds and started clapping and singing along - instantly uniting a bunch of stressed strangers into a collective sing-a-long.
The boat: the Asterix
After a night of sleeping on the tile floor in our 1 bed hotel room, we were picked up the following morning by Stefano who guided us to our boat - the Asterix.
Stefano was the only member of the 6 man crew of the Asterix who spoke English. There was the Captain, who weirdly never left the bridge of the boat and we never met, a cook, the cook's assistant, and two deck hands. It occurred to me as we were leaving that I had no idea what the itinerary was. We were spoiled in that Cousin Jeff planned the entire trip. With the craziness of trying to do all the things we needed to do to get out of our house in Colorado, the move to Taiwan, trying to find housing, etc., and the fact that we trust Jeff, I think we simply forgot to ask what the actual plan was. We got on the boat and really had no expectations or understanding of what we had ahead of us for the next 4 days.
The trip consisted of us traveling daily to various snorkeling hot spots, beautiful beaches on different islands, a few island hikes, 3 square meals with an afternoon snack, and some opportunity for the kids to jump off the bow of the boat. We averaged 3 stops/day and would find a cove where we would stop to sleep for the night. We were fortunate to have good weather the entire time, so the waves were never horrible. At each stop, the deck hands would set the anchor and we would stuff into a small dinghy with Stefano leading the way to explain to us what we were doing. There always seemed to be a nervousness when anyone over 200 pounds would enter or step off the dinghy. There was alway some heavy bracing and some redistribution of people to keep weight as even as possible despite my best efforts to not "rock the boat" (pun intended).--Trae
Early morning trek
After a late night 2.5 hour bumpy voyage across the channel, we woke early our first morning at 5am to do a trek. Stefano took us in the small boat to a steep island with nearly a million stairs. We started in darkness and watched as the sun started to emerge as we (some more slowly than others) approached the top. From the top point, we had a 360 degree view of the clear water and a famous point where three beaches come together - one with black sand, one with white sand, and one with pink sand. The rising sun reflected off the surrounding mountains around the beach. Gorgeous and worth the early rising. -Kim
Tiny island
We were giggling as we approached our first island this morning. It consisted of a tiny plot of sand, a single flag and some driftwood - looking like something out of a movie about being stranded on a deserted island. The island is barely visible at high tide but becomes a beautiful place to visit and snorkel from at low tide. The water was incredibly clear. Pure white fish greeted us close to shore camouflaged with the white sand. Snorkeling a bit further out, there as a reef with a host of brightly colored fish and coral. We mistook a tiny hermit crab as a peanut until it creeped away. - Kim
Bats
Our first night on the boat, just as the sun was setting, we visited Kalong Island where thousands of flying fox (fruit) bats started to make their feeding trip all at once. Huge, with a wingspan up to 5 ft, the bats were silent as they cruised over our boats and out in search of their fruit dinners. It was magnificent. All the boats sat equally quiet just witnessing. - Kim
Snorkeling
I've only been snorkeling one time before this trip, and this trip we went snorkeling a lot! It was probably one of the things that we did for most of the day. To snorkel, you have to fit your flippers and, to make sure our goggles didn't fog up in the water, we had to put toothpaste in them and rub it around and rinse it - scrub scrub scrub. We saw a bunch of different fish and, near the deeper end, we saw a lot of starfish. Most of them were pink or red with white or black polk a dots coming out of the top. But some of them were super skinny and bright blue. We saw an eel. It was called an Amore. Uncle Jeff sang us a song that said "When you are out on the reef, and you see great big teeth, it's Amore. Put your hand in a crack, and you don't get it back, it's Amore!" Mom's favorite part was when she swam alongside a sea turtle, and she smiled so big that water almost got in her snorkel! Uncle Jeff pointed out a bunch of sea sponges and a few sea slugs. He was very excited about them for some reason. One time when we went to snorkel we visited a beach called the pink beach. The sand was pink because there is a bunch of red coral that gets crushed up and washed onto the white sand. The coral was hard and rough but also soft and wavy. It was many different beautiful colors and shapes like an underwater world. --Poppy (w help from Mom)🐠
Komodo dragons
Komodo island was awesome! At the beginning, when we arrived at the island, we were given instructions to not touch any of the animals you see such as Komodo dragons, spitting cobras, or chickens. The last thing that our guide said before we started our search/walk was that you would be lucky if you saw a Komodo dragon. About 2 minutes into our walk, we saw one! It was a little baby dragon that was very quick, about the size of a normal sized dog, and we didn't see it for long, but boy was it news. Then, not even a minute after, we saw a giant one! It looked very tired and didn't mind that we took pictures with it, and it even posed for dad and auntie Jean. Then it went on the move while our instructor had my dad's phone, and the guide rushed a couple yards in front of the Komodo dragon and set the phone down and started a video. The Komodo dragon slowly crawled towards it and kicked the phone mid-stride(video down below)! He cracked my dad's phone! After enjoying our time with the big guy, we walked another 3 minutes before guess what, anther Komodo dragon! This one was also really cool and big, and then our guide said he was male and was pretty old. I asked, "How did you know that?" he said that he can tell it is a male because it's tale is long, and he knows roughly how old he is by the darkness of the skin. After our third komodo sighting, we headed back where we saw a big spider, a snake, and a Komodo dragon nest. We learned that after birth, the Komodo dragon mom goes away for around 3 months before returning. When she gets back to the nest, depending on whether or not the baby has climed up into the tree she will leave it alone if it's in the tree, or she will eat it if its still on the ground! Lastly, when we were heading back to the boat and thought our adventure was over, we saw yet a fourth Komodo dragon! It wasn't very big and it stayed perfectly still while we took pictures. Now that is the end of our Komodo dragon experience.--Grayson🐊
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