Under the Sea in Flores
Our final destination in Indonesia was the island of Flores. Unlike the other islands we visited in Indonesia, this one was much larger. Hopping on a scooter and driving an hour or two to see everything was out of the question. We decided instead to focus on one area, Labuhanbajo, and its main attraction—scuba diving. Our flight from Lombok to Flores was delayed a few hours because of a storm, which we attempted to let our AirBnb host know about. After getting our bags and strapping them to our bodies, we walked towards the exit of the tiny airport. Whoosh—2 large doors slide apart to reveal a crowd of taxi drivers, who upon seeing 2 white people with enormous bags strapped to their backs and fronts ferociously jumped up and down, waving their arms and yelling, “Taxi, taxi, taxi!” Think the seagulls from Finding Nemo saying “Mine! Mine! Mine!” We burst out laughing. Politely we told all of them we had arranged a pickup already and walked off to the side of the entrance away from the frenzy. That didn’t stop at least ten of them from coming over occasionally and asking again and again while we waited. They would even try throwing in a price that was supposed to sound enticing (but we knew by then it was a ripoff). After 20 minutes of waiting, our host pulled up and explained he had thought we were coming in earlier. We told him we had tried to send him a message that our flight was delayed, but he didn’t receive it. We waved goodbye to the unlucky taxi drivers and off we went to our AirBnb!
Once at our AirBnb, I settled in and unpacked our things while Bryan went to rent a scooter. The place was a fairly recently built house with some expected areas of shoddy construction, but I doubt most people would even notice. There were 2 bedrooms, a living room, a decent sized kitchen, and a yard that was completely surrounded by a high fence that we could lock at night. There was only air conditioning in the bedrooms, which led us to spend most of the time in our room as the heat was unbearable elsewhere. I reserved cooking to early morning and after dark hours, and just even thinking about putting my sweaty self on a cloth sofa gave me the heebie jeebies. Anyways, by the time I had unpacked and cooled down our bedroom to a nice bearable temperature, Bryan arrived with the scooter and 2 helmets. I hopped on and we rode 10 minutes into town in search of some dinner.
We ended up at a restaurant called Happy Banana Sushi, and it was delicious! We confused them when we ordered more than 2 sushi rolls because I guess most people can subsist on 6 pieces of sushi, but…we aren’t most people. The place was expensive and definitely catered to tourists as it was packed with non-locals. We left with full stomachs, and I was happy to have found a vegan option in town.
The next day we were on a grocery shopping mission to get some basic supplies to make meals for the rest of the week. After some frustration with the high prices, we tried out what looked like a brand new grocery store. We found out, yes it was opening day! The shelves were half empty, but we found some things and after checking out a man and woman asked to take a picture with us. We obliged and found out they were the owners of the grocery store! Grocery shopping done, we started on our next task—finding a scuba diving package and company we liked. After going to a few, we ended up at Blue Marlin (Suzie’s recommendation!) and went for a 3 day scuba diving package, which we later upgraded to get our deep water dive certification. After getting fitted for wet suits and scheduling our dive days we left ultra excited for our next diving adventure. We scootered back to the house and did some blog work.
That night, I woke up and realized the room was hot. I went over to the air conditioner in our room and realized it wasn’t turning on. The lights didn’t work—the fridge was off—the power was out! It was then I heard a faint beeping coming from outside. It was the power meter. I dragged a chair and stood on it to get a closer look. After looking up the service provider, I learned that in Indonesia, you prepay for your power. So you pay for a certain amount and once it runs out, you pay again for more power. Brilliant for making sure people pay their bills—bad for those of us renting and relying on someone else to remember to top up the power! I was worried that perhaps we had used up that month’s power in 2 days, but after asking a very grumpy Bryan (not many people live to see the light of day if they wake Bryan from a night’s slumber), he assured me we couldn’t have possibly used an entire month’s worth of power in 2 days especially when we were turning off the AC when we left the house. We messaged the AirBnb host to let him know of the situation. The next morning, we awoke to still no power. This was fine, but I was wondering if he had read our message. A few hours later, power returned! We watched the levels the next few days to gauge how much we were using and confirmed that the owner had simply forgotten to check and pay for more power before our stay—we weren’t ridiculous power using monsters—phew! That day, we didn’t do much except journal and work on the blog, search for some good coffee to brew in our pour over, and find a local produce market with some reasonable prices (finally!).
Day 4 in Flores was our first day of scuba diving. We met at Blue Marlin’s dive shop early morning, around 7:30 am to board the boat. We arrived a few minutes early and sat down in their restaurant to get our things together. After half an hour of waiting, Bryan and I looked around and saw everyone else doing the same thing. What was the hold up? The instructors made an announcement that there was a boat inspection going on at the moment and all boats in the harbor were being checked to make sure they met all the safety regulations. We ended up being delayed 2.5 hours waiting for all of the boats to be inspected. Once the instructors got the clear, we all rushed to the boats. It was that day that I remember feeling thankful Blue Marlin had a speedboat compared to the slow boats other dive companies have. Along the way we met our dive instructor, Doug, and the other person in our group a French man—to be honest I don’t remember his name. His wife was with him, but she had no scuba certification, so she would be snorkeling while the rest of us dove. He told Doug he hadn’t dove in a while, but he was confident he remembered everything.
Once we arrived at our first dive site, we checked our regulators and tanks before strapping on. We then learned we would be rolling backwards off the boat to enter the water. I was so nervous my first time. In Thailand we had learned the stepping off the boat procedure. You see everything in front of you before you drop into the ocean. This was like sitting on the edge of the boat and rolling off like someone had pushed you accidentally. You can’t see where you’ll land. But, like many things, after the first time, it wasn’t scary at all. We rolled back and popped up, inflated our BCDs, and met up with our instructor way behind the boat. He buddied up with the French man. Once we all gave our okay’s, he signaled to descend. This first dive was in an area with a pretty strong current, so we would let the current set our pace. This was the best place to see manta rays who love to swim in currents. They swim along and stop at patches of coral where other fish come out and clean him up. Once clean, the manta ray moves on! We were descended and ready to go in neutral buoyancy (think Superman flying, but his legs slightly higher than his head), when we looked around and only saw Doug. The French man was still halfway up. He descended a bit, then would go back up, then descend, and finally he just surfaced. Doug looked at us and made the ascent signal, so up we went, slowly. Once at the surface, the French man said he was having trouble clearing his mask. He had been blowing through his mouth into the regulator and his mask hadn’t been clearing.
For those unfamiliar with scuba diving, your mask covers your eyes and your nose. You only take in oxygen and breathe through your mouth via the regulator. If your mask fills up with water, breathe in through your mouth for air and breathe out through your nose to push the water out of the mask, thus clearing the mask and allowing you to see! So, you can understand now how blowing out through your mouth wouldn’t clear your eye mask…you’re just breathing. After Doug patiently explained to the French man how to clear his mask, we descended again. This time, everything went smoothly, so off we went. We saw a few patches of coral here and there with some fish, but it wasn’t until almost the end of our dive we saw a manta ray. Doug had explained to us that mantas are very curious, and if we didn’t get too excited or scared it would come over and check us out. Once we saw this giant magnificent creature, I tried to slow my heartbeat and excitement. We all became still and held onto some rocks so the current wouldn’t push us along. The manta ray slowed and then turned towards us. It swam towards us, checking us out briefly before deciding we were nothing interesting and swam away. Bryan caught the whole thing on his GoPro, but being a wide angle, the manta looks farther away than in real life. At the end, we ascended and did a three-minute safety stop 5 meters below the surface. This helps prevent decompression sickness when diving at depths lower than 10 meters for long amounts of time. Well, French man’s second mistake happened when he just went right up to the surface. Pop! We all completed our three minutes before ascending the last 5 meters, and then Doug asked him why he hadn’t stopped. He said he couldn’t get himself to stop from ascending.
A blurry still from Bryan’s GoPro footage of the manta ray
It was on the boat ride to our next dive that Doug explained to him what all beginner scuba divers learn about when getting certified—how the change in pressure expands the air and inflates your BCD (an inflatable vest you wear to control your buoyancy) as you ascend and you have to deflate it to control the rate at which you ascend. The same goes for descending. The farther down you go the more pressure compresses the air inside your BCD and you have to inflate the BCD to keep yourself from descending too quickly. A common visual to show this phenomenon is an unopened bag of chips. There is usually a good amount of air in an unopened bag of chips you buy from the store. If you take that unopened bag under water, the air inside compresses and at deep depths it will look like it’s shrink-wrapped. Then as you ascend, the air expands, and you have a normal bag of chips at the surface. This is essentially a nice visual of your lungs. If you were to fill your lungs with air at the bottom of your dive and hold your breath as you ascended, the air inside your lungs would expand and ultimately burst your lungs. Yikes. That’s why rule number one in scuba diving is to keep breathing! Anyways, this basic lesson on air pressure and its effects on the BCD while ascending and descending I think went in one ear and out the other with the French man.
Another still from the GoPro. We don’t have a red filter for the deep water depths, so I attempted to do some post footage editing to give you an idea of how brilliant the colors are, but of course this doesn’t compare to seeing it in person!
On our next dive we descended smoothly and had a fantastic dive with a few colorful corals and fish—with the highlights being a few turtles and an octopus! Another instructor who happened to spot the octopus with his student at the same time as our group, took his pointer and moved a rock outside where the octopus was hiding. We saw the octopus’s arm reach out and wrap around the rock and drag it back to his hiding place for further inspection (to see if it was a possible meal I think). The most hilarious thing happened after we saw the octopus. The French man was ascending and descending as we swam through our dive. A half a meter of change of ascending and descending is common when diving above uneven sea floor. However, the French man was ascending and descending many meters. So Doug ended up taking the French man’s emergency regulator and holding onto it, dragging the French man along to make sure he didn’t ascend all the way to the surface and risk decompression sickness. The result was what looked like a man holding a balloon. I couldn’t help but laugh. Of course, at the end of our dive the same explanation about air pressure and neutral buoyancy was given. Doug looked exhausted and suggested this man take a refresher course.
Doug and his Frenchman balloon
The last dive was a 30 meter—100 foot—dive, which Bryan and I weren’t certified to do (we could only go to depths of 18 meters—60 feet). So, we instead opted for snorkeling. Honestly, we didn’t miss out on much, as most of the sea life at this dive was in the first 10 meters. We got our first glimpse of the beauty and diversity of corals and fish at Flores. Wow! I had never seen so many different types and colors of coral in my life, not to mention the number and variety of fish swimming in and around the corral. Bryan did some post editing on the video footage to give you an idea of the color variety, but we couldn’t get it perfect, but you can still get a sense of the diversity in shapes and fish. We also followed a sea snake along its swim to the surface—we found out later it was the most poisonous snake in the world! Luckily for us humans, its mouth is too small to affect us, so long as it doesn’t bite your earlobe. As we rode back, the skies let out a downpour, and we all just huddled in the back of the boat, snacking on fresh fruit and juice, wiped out from our dives.
Can you spot the snake??
The following day was a chill day, as we simply went to a decent coffee shop and worked on the blog a bit. It was a brand new shop and built on a cliff, so we really couldn’t complain about the office views that day. Before you was a panorama of the ocean and various tiny islands and boating ships dotting the bright blue waters. The first picture at the top of this post is that view! I’ll take this moment to discuss some of our local “favs” of the island.
Best coffee—Escape Bajo, for your morning cup. They also serve breakfast, although we didn’t partake. The one place I wish we had visited was the Gerbucks coffee stand. It was only open at night though, from 8 pm to the wee hours of the night. We saw the stand set up with some fantastic coffee making supplies and always teeming with locals getting a late-night caffeine buzz.
Best Restaurant—Mama Warung. We’ve explained earlier that warungs are family owned small restaurants serving local cuisine. Mama Warung is similar with a wide range of rotating dishes. With a multitude of vegan and non-vegan options—everyone leaves happy. Ask for the yellow rice—yum! This was also the cheapest place we ate at and the portions were the largest. Seriously, no complaints.
I think this whole plate cost about $4 USD
Honorable mentions:
Happy Banana—sushi and Asian fusion cuisine. We loved their vegan sushi options, but not so in love with how expensive the dishes were
Bajo Taco—We went for happy hour a few times and ate on the rooftop. A great place for Mexican-ish food. Get your fresh guac fix here…and a margarita to wash it down.
Mediterraneo—The most expensive place on our list, but great for a nice night out. Fantastic Italian and Mediterranean inspired dishes. You can tell the care they put into the food and its presentation.
Local markets—Along the main road in the early mornings and late nights there are various local stands selling produce. I try and find the local markets in Indonesia as the grocery stores are always waaay overpriced and over packaged. If you’re into eating fish, there is a fish night market by the pier.
Alright, back to diving. After a day off, Bryan and I were re-energized for our next dive. We had a passionate local as our dive instructor. He had a giant poofy afro, which will become important in our story later on. Our guide throughout the day was wonderful at pointing out wildlife that Bryan and I would normally not see. He also had scuba diving skills like I had never seen before. He floated through our dive almost entirely in the same kneeling-for-prayer-at-church position with his arms crossed in front of his chest. I watched as he floated close above the coral, but not once touched it. If he pointed something out, he would somehow stay still even in a slight current. Wizardry I tell you. And underwater, our guide’s poofy ‘fro waved gently in the sea like a fuzzy anemone. I even spotted a fish playing in the tips of his hair only to frantically swim away when he moved.
An older Aussie couple rounded out our diving group. They were beyond friendly, and we pleasantly chatted the entire day. They were also very experienced divers. Bryan and I felt like newbies again as our guide and the Aussies descended and equalized much quicker than Bryan and me. I always take longer than average to descend as I equalize my ears just about every breath as I descend. On our first dive, Bryan had some trouble equalizing, so he took even longer than he normally does. Thankfully, the guide and the pro Aussie divers were patient waiting for us to equalize. Once we had descended though we all had a blast taking our time floating around the various corals and sea life. I’ll include some of the many, many fish we saw below, but those are only a fraction of what we saw. My favorite at the time was the garden eels. You know that scene in The Little Mermaid where Ariel swims over the mermaids and mermen that had been turned into eels? It was way less creepy and more entertaining. They looked like 2 foot long earthworms poking up from the ground. If we swam close they would suddenly pop back into their holes and sneak back out as we swam away. I merely had to wave my hand towards them and the nearest group would hide.
We also talked to a Dutch couple getting their open water certification. The girl was having issues equalizing, and how she was upset she had to skip their first day of diving. I told her a Dutch girl in our open water certification course in Thailand had some issues during the dives and ended up completing the written portion of her course. She was going to complete the dives at a later time. This girl liked that idea and decided she was going to do that too and finish in Amsterdam.
Our next day was another day off from diving, so we took that scooter and did some exploring on the island. Before that, we attempted for the third and final time to find a coffee shop Bryan was hoping to get some coffee for our pourover. No luck—it was closed again! We then went to the peninsula near Labuhanbajo. It was full of lush green hills, farms, and quiet resorts by the beaches below. We didn’t run into many tourists—maybe 2. After scooting as far as the roads would allow and taking a view pictures and taking in the ocean views and walking along a beach, we went back to the AirBnb and relaxed.
Scooter adventure views
The farthest we could get on the peninsula
I love how the palm trees are scattered along the hills. They look like pushpins stuck into the ground.
Look how blue that water is!
Our trusty scooter and the “roads”
Walks on the beach
How pipes and electric lines in Indonesia cross streams….yikes!
Did somebody say they needed a doctor??
Day 8 on Flores was moving day for us. We moved from our private AirBnb to the La Boheme hostel only a 15 minute walk to the center of town. Bryan and I had a private room which was basic, but met all of our needs. We would get waken in the morning by pigeons gathering on the metal roof above our bedroom, but otherwise it was quiet. The move itself was a process as we had one scooter and 4 bags. Bryan scootered me first with my big bag and 1 little bag. While I checked into our room, he went back to the AirBnb and brought over our last 2 bags. The hostel had plenty of mingling space, free breakfast, and a bar. The highlight was definitely the little girl on the street of our hostel that would high five us every time we walked by.
Our final day, day 9, was our final dive. We had decided to upgrade to get our deep dive certification. We lumped this in with a tour of Rinca Island in Komodo National Park. Doug was our guide for the day. Our first dive was the deep water dive, we would descend to 30 meters (100 feet). We observed how the color red disappears at that depth as those wavelengths cannot reach that deep into the ocean. However, when a flashlight is used, you can again see the red color. We also observed the pressure difference with the chip bag I described earlier. Upon first descending, Doug excitedly pointed above us to a school of cownose rays swimming directly above us! He told us later that a sight like that was rare and the first he had seen. We didn’t capture video of the moment, but I told Bryan that image will be etched into my memory forever. We also saw some pipe fish and anemone fish scrubbing themselves. Our boat was nearly empty with only 4 divers and 2 instructors. Our second dive we zig-zagged through some gorgeous coral and enjoyed our last chance to see the cool fish in the area.
Our first glimpse of a komodo dragon
Taking a midday nap
Doug then joined us on our tour of Komodo National Park. He knew the nature guide as he had been on the same tour with other students a handful of times. Doug told us how one time a Komodo dragon blocked their pathway and they had to back away and wait for it to decide to move. I was very much hoping the same wouldn’t happen to us. Our guide was fearless with the komodos and took many pictures for us. He also cracked a lot of jokes and had us laughing the entire time. Doug was a little too comfortable with the tour at first and was leading our small group through the tour path. He was looking back and talking to us when I noticed he was headed straight into the path of a full grown male komodo. I yelled out, “Doug! Doug! Watch out! Doug!” The guide grabbed his arm just in time. Doug was 2 steps away from a full grown male Komodo dragon whom I’m sure would have loved human for lunch. Doug was a bit shook from his brush with death and stayed at the back of the group until almost the end of the tour!
This park guide had to shoo away a few frisky juvenile komodos during his break
Our guide! Behind him the komodo dragon Doug almost stepped on…
He would use the stick to gently lift their heads
So wrinkly
Our guide while taking this picture, “Get closer!!” Me: “Nah”
Bryan’s response, “Like this??” Meanwhile, I’m trying to put on a brave face
View from the top of our walk on Rinca Island
Beyond being incredibly scary, Komodo dragons are actually really cool, and Rinca Island is one of the few places left in the world where they still live in the wild. Komodos grow to full size by 25-30 years. Males have an average lifespan of 50 years, while females have shorter lifespans because they expend extra energy digging nests, producing eggs, and incubating them for 8 months, and protecting newborns for 6 months. After 6 months, babies must live the following 2 years in the trees to avoid getting eaten by the adults. Yup, you read that right. Adult komodos have no problem with eating their own babies. Babies eat geckos and insects while in the trees. Another fun fact—women cannot visit hunting grounds during meunstration because komodos will smell blood and attack! Boy was I glad it wasn’t my time of the month when we visited!
Full grown komodos hunt deer as their main food source. We saw a deer skeleton propped on a tree picked fairly clean. They can run up to 20 km/hr (12.4 mph) to catch their prey. Komodo Island in Komodo National Park will be closing next year. The deer population has diminished due to humans hunting them. This obviously is a threat to the komodos who rely on deer. Also, our guide told us a man was recently caught stealing Komodo eggs and selling them for ~$3500 each. He stupidly advertised on Facebook and was caught by local police fairly quickly. Rinca Island however will remain open in Komodo National Park, so tourists can still see komodos!
A mischievous monkey
After our tour, we waited by the docks for our boat to pick us up. The time seemed to drag on, so luckily a few cheeky monkeys turned up to entertain us. Doug had been traumatized by a terrifying monkey experience in India, so he made sure to keep his distance. A couple came and sat down by us, and one of the monkeys climbed down from the roof of the shelter giving us shade and sat behind the man. The monkey then reached out and pinched the man’s shirt. Startled, the man stood up and moved out of the way. The monkey just stared at him briefly and moved on. The monkeys then found entertainment elsewhere as they sneakily hopped on boats tied to the docks and stole bananas.
The boat ride back
Riding back to Flores
The last few days in Indonesia were spent flying to Bali and spending a night in Denpasar where we ate tons of Indian food and did some souvenir shopping. The following day we flew out on to our next destination—Auckland, New Zealand, where cool late fall weather greeted us.
Nothing better than fried bread yummm
