Shot gun - Komodo National Park, Indonesia
Komodo National Park, Indonesia
The day started off slowly - I’d woken up at 6am and carried on reading my book while Edd slept. By 8am it was time to get up and his dad came down to see if we were joining them for breakfast.
I was still in a bad mood from the day before, and the update on the days itinerary only made it worse. After breakfast Edd and his dad went and spoke to one of the many chiefs, about what they thought of the days activities and how they were running the cruise. Which was that they weren’t, it was just happening and everyone was watching it. I felt a bit like they were too lazy to move as they expected the divers to dive in the same place twice that day, which they weren’t interested in doing anyway. I was also in a pretty bad mood, so my opinion on the entire matter was that it was run like a circus.
The guy came down, with a face he nearly tripped over, and Edd announced that we were going for a snorkel. I went downstairs to get a plaster for my toe and then spent 5 minutes looking for a scissors - they found a pair in the kitchen and I cut a slither off; my flippers had been rubbing on a toe on my left foot and it was looking pretty unhappy with life. I joined everyone on the fast boat and we set off for the location the divers had been in before breakfast.
The snorkel session turned out to be spectacular - we’d been dropped off on the far side of the middle of 2 islands that had an exceptionally strong current running between them; it had a name: The Shot Gun. We weren’t particularly sure what was meant by this, but we soon found out. We were looking at sea life that was pretty deep in the area we were in, with some amazing coral reefs, when we were swept up by this current and hurled between the islands to the other side. Swimming against it had no result, so we stopped trying soon after we started.
We ended up on the other side of the pass between the two islands in about a minute and all thought he experience was pretty peculiar, but fun and I wanted to go again. We spotted another turtle at the bottom, that started to make its way to the surface. We swam with it for a short while, before it took a breath and swam back to the ocean floor. Definitely a life highlight.
We were collected by the speed boat and taken tot he beach where Edd’s mum had been dropped off and was doing a bit of exploring. We were all taken back to the main boat, where we had a tuna salad for starter (I was given extra feta cheese in its place) and wahoo fish curry with strawberry and vanilla ice cream for dessert.
Edd had started feeling a bit ill before lunch and after lunch took a dive (not the PADI kind). I went to look for him after sitting on the top level in the sun for a while, and found him in bed, sleeping. His dad and I went for a snorkel without him and his mum sat in the boat, bobbing along following us - she had come along under the pretence that she’d get dropped off on a beach again, but it didn’t happen and she was left to sit in a boat in the middle of the ocean, not particularly happy with life. Edd’s dad and I, along with our guide, were collected again after seeing an incredible eagle ray; we knew Edd would be peeved for having missed it.
We got back to the boat and I went downstairs to check on Edd: he had a really bad temperature and his body was hypersensitive; the situation had become dire. He was given antibiotics and paracetamol by his mum and I sat with him and read my book, so that he wasn’t alone. His folks came in periodically to check on their dying child, but his temperature was still sky high and the painkillers hadn’t done much. We all hoped against hope that he’d be okay in the morning, even though deep down, I sincerely doubted it.
I went upstairs for dinner, which Edd skipped: it was amazing lamb chops and again we knew he’d be bleak for missing dinner. Everyone went to bed and one of the dive masters sat and chatted to the American daughter and I, until 9pm. I then went down to check on Edd, whose temperature had finally broken and was feeling a bit better.