How to Lick a Dragon

I’ve spent a good portion of my grown-up life chasing mythical creatures: mermaids, unicorns, leprechauns, “the one”, and now a new sort of quest has evoked me – the dragon hunt.

Because my flying academy came to a very abrupt end when I was caught jumping off a two story wall (age 8), I still can’t fly. This makes getting around a whole lot harder than it ought to be. But life at sea is a close second.

It took a good few days of sailing to get into the dragony waters. And in an attempt to psych myself up for the chase, whilst on a 4am night watch, my ipod fell to the depths of the ocean half way through ‘The final countdown”. I really hope the mermen below have good taste in music.

Our beautiful anchorage in Rindja island

Rindja (or Rinca or Rincha) island was as mysterious as we’d hoped; a desolate island mass teeming with deer, wild horses and macaque. We took on a friendly guide A) because we had to and B) Because a man with a big stick to fight off dragons is better than no man with a big stick to fight off dragons.

The quest continued.

One. Two. Six. A cluster lay sprawled out in the shade. Almost lifeless – like statutes. The magical dragons were as big as I’d imagined – their piercing stares shot shudders down my spine.

Fortunately, they didn’t move much. They stood up only to defecate, and then they’d lie back down after a few lashes of their long forked tongues. Komodo dragons do not shoot fire. This was a disappointment.

We ventured deeper into the island.

Solitary dragons lay hidden in bushes [and the young in trees] guarding their nests and digesting their bellies. They eat but once a month, but when they do eat [monkeys/ buffalo/ horses/ humans] they eat everything – fur and bones included. It probably explains their hairy poo.

Licking hairy dragon poo - apparently it will take up to a month to see if this  action has done any permanent damage to my being

Komodos may appear to be the laziest creatures on earth (after the people in the world's tax and traffic offices), but they run at 18 km/ hour and often just administer a single bite to their prey. They then follow the victim for up to two weeks until death by infection consumes. What a horrible way to go.

[At least it' a pretty place to die]

For two days we explored the island, marveling at the violent landscape and marvelous wildlife. For two days we kept our heartbeats up - hoping not to fall victim (or lunch). For two days I tried to find the courage to lick a dragon. And then finally…

[Photoshop is a powerful tool!]

I lived.  

Shipwrecked... Marooned... Destined for Greatnesses

From left to right: South Africa (Adeena), America (Jon), Netherlands (Luke) Czech Republic (Helena), Estonia (Tom)

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Marooned on a deserted island at sunrise… our final liters of water beguiling us. Netherlands had suffered hallucinations all night, his feet ripped by coral, his leg swollen from an unfortunate collision with a jellyfish. Czech Republichad heat stroke. America and Estoniaweren’t in good repair either; I struggled to perform the basic skill of standing. It had been pouring with rain all night and we were all exhausted.....

Only ten days earlier we’d sat staring into the islandly abyss as the sun ducked behind a distant land and we’d decided we needed a boat. 

It turns out boats are pretty expensive – who knew? And that’s why we begged, borrowed and bought everything we needed to build one. We figured a day or two of hard labour would have us sailing in no time, but 8 days of sweat and toil later we were finally ready. Or at least we thought we were.

We decided we’d sail all the way into Thailand and, because there’s no way to legally do this on a self-constructed raft; we appropriately named the vessel ‘The Illegal Immigrant.’ And she was beautifully immigrantish.

We sailed and paddled and swam and visited beautiful islands and life was perfect! Surreally perfect! Until about 4pm that was… At 4 the winds picked up. Czech told us she kept hearing snapping noises – we assured her we were fine, perfectly perfectly fine. 

And then we watched our first barrel float away.

I dived in and chased it across the sea and when I finally reached it I realized there was no possible way I could actually bring it back and, worse – I realized the current was dragging us into an infinite harbor wall… the waves were crashing violently against the wall and our little Immigrant didn’t stand a chance. With a barrel gone there was no steering; we had twenty minutes tops to abandon ship.

A golden island beach glistened in the distance and so, with all our belongings tied to us, with all the food and water we could carry, and with a make shift life jacket keeping Czech afloat, we started the swim. A good two and a half hour swim [- sing- talk- do anything to keep our minds off the incessant swimming] later we were battling the coral and dragging our belongings onto the shore.

Excitement and amazement as we reached the shore alive!

And that wasn’t the end of it either… the storm was closing in fast and our island held nothing but rocks and trees and crabs and sand and so, using sticks and ropes and the remains of our sail, we constructed a shelter and a fire and huddled together trying desperately to warm ourselves and recuperate.

We drifted in and out of sleep as the wind howled and the torrents poured down and lightning flashed and crabs attacked our toes and by sunrise we were desperately plotting our escape.

Netherlands and I etched ‘SOS’ ‘HELP’ into the sand while Estonia and Czech tried to flag down passing fisherman and America tried to reach civilization. But nobody paid any attention to us as we yelled and waved and whistled and every time hope glistened, it turned and fled in the wrong direction.

Just before noon we watched a skipper pulling around the corner with a very fatigued America onboard. He’d rounded our island, swam to the next, walked through the middle of that one, and found a small private resort with a boat… Our rescue boat. We were saved!

Our rescue boat

They returned us to the realer world a lot faster than we’d left it. where we all ventured off in search of new adventures [And the hospital].

And it's amazing how life brings you around in circles, but today, 6 months later, I'm back in Malaysian waters, building a new sort of boat... Let's hope this time's a little [or a lot] less shipwrecky!

For the very professional photos of the story, visit http://www.iisource.net/malaysiaweb/index.html