Komodo Island

A nice shot by Michael Peck on Flickr. Thanks Michael! The Komodo dragon is finishing off a deer.

If you ever get a chance to cruise around Indonesia , one of the stops you have to make is Komodo Island , a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

You get there by tender from the ship then the tour guide meets you and takes you to where all the Komodo dragons hang out. When I was there they were pretty docile as they were fed quite regularly. The locals would throw a deer in a pit and these dragons would tear away at the carcass.

The Komodo dragons don't usually attack humans unless their strong sense of smell picks up blood. Their tongues are always moving in and out because that is what they get their sense of smell from.

We were able to see them right up close but what was really weird is the leader would walk us through them so that we could view them from inside a fence that was no higher than your calves. I mean if they really wanted to get you there would have been no problem.

How they hunt a deer for instance would be they would run after the deer for a time until the deer got into a trapped space. For instance if the deer went into the water it was safe from the Komodo. But the Komodo was smart even though they are quite dumb ( after all it is closer than anything to a dinosaur ), it would wait till the deer got tired in the water. The Komodo would just lay down on the beach and wait for it's prey to come ashore. You know what happened next.

The Komodo dragon is only found in this part of the world and wasn't discovered until 1910 by Western scientist. They weigh about 150 pounds and can grow anywhere from 6 to 10 feet. Some can live up to 50 years.

You know when I was doing those Bali to Singapore 10 day cruises I managed to see a good many spots in Indonesia that would be difficult to see if I wasn't cruising. Taking a cruise through these parts is well worth the investment. The shore excursions are amazing. In the next couple of posts I will talk of some of these stops.

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Have a great day!