We limped back to the Riviera, down one man. The events are recounted below.
Our bright orange, tender steered a direct course for the Komodo coastline. Its contents included two guides a trapper, a navigator, a naturalist and 25 pampered and entitled seniors.
Komodo (pronounced Como-Doe) is one of the 17,000 islands that make up the island nation of Indonesia. There are no inhabitants on the island other than a fishing village called Loh Liang. The visitor’s guide describes Loh Liang as a friendly place full of goats, chickens and children, which together provides balanced meals for the dragons.
Emerging from our vessel, we are immediately overcome with oppressive humidity and heat just a notch more habitable than Kissimmee, Florida.
The safari’s lead guide and trapper, Fani, is only 27 years old but looks 20 years older. Fani bears the reminders of a Komodo guide. He has a giant scar across his left cheek and presents with various facial tics and nervous twitches, and his gesticulations are reminiscent of those of the lead singer for a Mariachi band.
For the reader’s edification, if you have ever been to Skull island then you’ll be familiar with Komodo. It’s the kind of place you would fully expect to see Mothra and Godzilla locked in epic battle.
The combined area of the island is 1,000 square miles, so our trek to find the beast would be tricky. They are expert hunters with a sense of smell that can detect their next meal from five miles away. My grandfather Pasquale possessed a similar olfactory advantage.
The Komodo is an apex predator with huge hooked claws and a forked tongue, reaching 12 inches long, which they use much in the same manner as a snake. The tongue’s venom is toxic and induces uncontrollable nausea, not unlike my mother in law’s cooking.
The forbidable dragon is fast on land and able to swim as easily as it can climb a tree but is not an ideal family pet unless you can commit to giving it 3 brisk walks per day.
Several tortuous and strenuous hours into the dense Komodo hedge, we finally spied a pair of mating Komodos. A male Komodo can make love for 6 hours straight, which explained the cocktail shaker and Dean Martin records. Approaching an amorous Komodo is risky business indeed.
Dr. Penelope Robbins (pictured in one of the photos), the ship’s naturalist and lecturer at Imperial in London, went in for a closer look.
Crawling on her belly commando style, she inched towards the randy beast all the time ignoring the lightning strikes of the dragon’s tongue, which flicked and hissed inches above her head. In the time it took to swap her field glasses for her Minolta, the annoyed lovers employed a pincer maneuver and split the doctor into two bite sized sharing portions. The woman let out an audible squeal and then disappeared forever from God’s good earth. In unison, the two beasts gulped, belched, and spit out the naturalist’s field jacket (made of naturally breathable fabric) and retired underneath a shady tree to digest.
Back on the ship, we were all distraught and disturbed, and none of us could finish a second scoop of ice cream. Once again, we dipped into the Riviera’s rum rations and retired to our state rooms.
Three days at sea and we arrive next in Freemantle, Australia, where we will attempt to teach cricket to a kangaroo. With a 3- meter leap, imagine the jolly-good advantage over those pesky West Indies