Ain’t No Party Like a Pink Beach Party!

Second to last day – and it was another really fun one.  We were up early to watch sunrise as we sailed into Horseshoe Bay, which is at the southern end of Rinca Island (still in Komodo National Park).  Its named for its shape as it has the small island of Nusa Kode nestled in the middle of a perfectly shaped sickle bay.  The landscape is pretty wild and impressive, with rugged green lumpy hills.  It doesn’t take much imagination to picture dinosaurs roaming around these parts!

After breakfast, the first item on today’s itinerary at 8am was a tender boat ride to see if we could spot any more komodo dragons (or other wildlife) on the beach.  We did see another sea eagle and a couple of very well disguised monkeys (there is one in the picture below – see if you can spot it!) and, as we approached the end of the stretch of beach, I thought we were going to be out of luck – but then, bingo!  We first saw one dragon heading down a small hill towards the shore – and then a second one, on the beach itself. They were both on the “smaller” side (ha ha), one male and one female (you can tell by the snouts) – and later our guides told us they thought the female was pregnant by the shape of her belly.  Our boat did get quite close at one point, probably about 10ft away, and they can actually swim which made me a little nervous, but of course, we were fine – our guides know what they are doing!  The two dragons ended up on the same part of the beach – but didn’t interact with each other despite, of course, being aware of each other’s presence (we were on the boat hoping for some type of komodo smackdown wrestling contest!).  One of them proceeded to scarf up the most disgusting looking beach roadkill – I think it was a dead puffer-type fish – apparently, they will eat anything!

After the tender ride, there was another snorkeling excursion offered, but I skipped it to catch up on some blogging, so spent a nice chill couple of hours in the library/TV room going through all my pictures.  As coincidence would have it, the onboard pop-up shop also opened again during this time, so I got another cute little bracelet as well as an Aqua Blu hoodie.  Lunch brought some very tasty pasta (yum!) accompanied by a couple of glasses of wine, followed by a nice long nap.   We had to get a disco nap in because, at 3.30pm, Dean Onthebridge (that’s one hellava surname, btw) announced that the Aqua Blu Beach Club was open and ready for action!

Since leaving Horseshoe Bay, we had relocated to one of the famous Pink Beaches in Indonesia (one of only 2 that you can land on) and so, after lunch, the crew had been hard at work setting up a whole beach party scene for us all, complete with chairs, umbrellas, inflatables, drinks and snacks!  It was quite the thing!!  The beach was, indeed, pink and I found out that its because of tiny little fragments of red coral that mix with the sand to give that overall appearance.  Slightly less cheerful – the coral only becomes red when it dies, so its technically more accurate to call the beach Dead Coral Fragments Beach!   I had fun wrestling first with the giant inflatable unicorn, then the giant pink flamingo – alas, both of them got the better of me and turfed me off into the ocean numerous times.  I blame the ocean current pulling me back into shore – also, its a lot harder than it looks to get back on one of those things when you are already in the sea – its quite high up!!  Of course, Courtney and Janice made it look super easy – being from California, I suspect they spend more of their non-vacation time at the beach and in the water.  That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.

As Dean had warned us, it wasn’t too long before we spotted one of several wild pigs that roam the beach – they scavenge for unattended (or discarded) coconuts and are TOTALLY unafraid of people and will come straight up to you and swipe your coconut drink if you are not paying attention!!  One of them (apparently notorious for being a bit cheeky) came really quite close, so the crew chased him off (he came back later and managed to swipe a coconut, so mission accomplished!).

We also had the opportunity to do some souvenir shopping as there were a number of locals selling all hand-made, locally produced goods including carved komodo dragons of all sizes, decorative bowls and plates made out of abalone shells as well as other wooden bowls, jewelry, t-shirts and the like.  It was nice to know that any money you spent would go directly to the people who had produced the items – that’s the kind of spending that makes everyone feel good.  There were about 8-9 different vendors, all selling variants of the same thing, so I tried to spread my purchases around as much as I could to try and be fair to all.  I ended up buying a couple of different dragons and quite a few bowls (ManpanionTM was starting to squeak in alarm about how it would all fit in our suitcase) so I think I was probably the Star Shopper of the Group!  It was fun to interact with the locals (via Andre) and barter (inexpertly) on the prices – they did accept US dollars which meant that we’ve managed to do our entire trip through Singapore, Malaysia AND Indonesia without once getting any local currency!!  (the same thing happened when we were in New Zealand – credit cards were king!).  It was a really fun afternoon – and it was great to see the crew seeming to have a genuinely good time too, with lots of smiles, laughing and dancing (though we probably need to talk with Febrio about his music choices – Boney M and Daddy Cool?  Now I can’t get that song out of my head!!).  There were some local kids on the beach playing football – one of them was very cute and friendly – apparently he started calling Kirsten (a VERY cool lady and exceptionally talented artist) Mama Kiki Best – which was adorable!!

By about 5.30pm, it was time to head back to the boat to get changed and showered ready for dinner.   En route to our cabin, we somehow got involved in Liam, Kirsten and Matteo’s crazy plan to Jump Off The Boat!  Kirsten went first (that woman is an inspiration), then Liam jumped off the top deck (terrifying!) then ManpanionTM joined in – and so I had no choice and did it too!!!  Damn that FOMO!!  Matteo overcame his (very sensible, tbh) fear of heights and he also leaped!!  It was a really fun (if mildly terrifying) shared experience – and not how I was expecting to close out the afternoon!!

ManpanionTM and I were both pretty tired (post-adrenaline crash or an afternoon drinking cocktails on the beach?) but we managed to make it through dinner before finally heading to bed at 8.15pm!  Its hard to believe that tomorrow is our final day on the boat – and then we have a BRUTAL travel day the next day to get home to Chicago.  BUT am not thinking about that yet – lets just continue to enjoy the time we have left first!