We were supposed to be picked up first at 5 am, then at 10 am, and finally at 9 am. With the driver we were three then, but we had to pick two more who morphed into three very large people with correspondingly enormous suitcases, all in a mini-van designed for 5 people of regular Indonesian build. Somehow we managed to all get in, and with grumbles headed to the port, to find a completely chaotic scene reminiscent of a Jules Verne novel. A large number of medium-sized boats were at anchor half a mile from the port, and back-and-forth from them were tenders ferrying suitcases, and odd-matched groups of people. To add to the chaos, many foreigners were paranoid that a scrawny guy claiming to be their guide would take off with their car-sized suitcases. But all is well that ends well, and by taking a leap of faith into a not very sturdy tender we were brought to the Pada Idi, a wooden boat that was probably built 75 years ago in a fisherman's backyard, saw 50 years hard work fishing and shrimping (to judge from the relict cranes), and over the last 25 years has turned into a pleasure cruise doing the route between Labuan Bajo, Padar Island, and Komodo Island.
We got underway at around noon, and around a scrumptious lunch made the acquaintance of our traveling companions: First we had the two Jakartan Princesses, Tuti (25 years old) and Desti (22 years old), who were a traveling display of high fashion and of Instagram influencers. They were super nice and always full of smiles, but they only spoke Indonesian, so the only one who could converse with them was Irvan (the lucky devil!). They were very image conscious, constantly renewing their lip gloss and checking this pose or that, and they must have taken thousands of selfies for their social media posts.
Then there were the Argentinians, a couple in their early sixties traveling with their 30-year old son. They were from Buenos Aires, but their son had just finished a work stint in Australia as Life Guard, and was planning on moving to Mallorca to look for similar work. They all three are hard core scuba divers, so this little cruise was but a snorkeling warm up for nearly a month diving in the atolls of Papua.
Finally we had a Spaniard in his mid 30's, Carlos, who works as a Practicing Nurse in Barcelona but was taking an extended vacation of about 40 days in Bali and Flores. Later we shared the same puzzle about how to extend our visas to cover 3 additional days in my case and 10 days in his. But that is part of a future story.
The highlights of the afternoon were two snorkeling stops on the way to Padar Island. Even though I lucked out finding a mask that fitted me well, and a good pair of fins, getting into the water for the first time was difficult: Trying to put the fins while in the water requires you to have the elasticity of a rubber band, particularly because the odd center of gravity tends to drag you under the boat. Getting out was almost as difficult, and I managed to scrape myself badly as I tumbled into the boat. Irvan, who does not know how to swim abut is a keen observer, suggested I do it like the others, putting the fins while still sitting inside the boat and then simply tipping backward into the water. Scary, but I tried it and it worked!
Snorkeling is incredibly fun. You are suspended over a different realm, joining the flow with schools of multi-colored fish, staring at a small fish that has a big black spot that looks like the eye of a sea monster, or following a flute fish of a bright yellow color. With a good fitting mask you can remain under water for 15 minutes at a stretch, seeing an ever changing seascape of stick, leaf, and bulbous and spherical corals. On the second soak I saw a couple of turtles that had been lounging on top of the coral, and sensing themselves observed took off like a leviathan rising effortlessly through the water column. Totally cool.
The last stop was at one of the many Pink Beaches around Padar Island. The sand of the beach looks pink at the distance, but upon close inspection one can see that most of the sand is formed by white bits of coral, but there is a 5% sprinkling of pieces of red coral, just enough to tinge the mix pink. I am not sure where the red coral comes from. I certainly didn't see any on our short soaks (I imagine red coral is covered by green slime like any other coral, and none of the locals seems to use it in their handcrafts, which I guess is good for the survival of the subspecies.
I ate a very hearty dinner, but my tummy is grumbling.
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