Posted on 06/08/2008 10:47:04 PM PDT by kms61
JAKARTA, Indonesia - Scuba divers swept away in strong currents survived 12 hours in shark-infested waters before scrambling onto a remote Indonesian island where they faced yet another threat: a Komodo dragon. ADVERTISEMENT
The divers — three from Britain and one each from France and Sweden — came face-to-face with the giant, carnivorous lizard on Rinca's palm-fringed beach, and fought it off by pelting it with rocks and pieces of wood, Pariman, a port official said Sunday.
"Luckily, they were able to chase it away," said Pariman, who, like many Indonesians, goes by only one name.
The beasts have sharp, serrated teeth and often come out when they smell something new, including humans — whom they've been known to kill, Pariman said.
The divers encountered treacherous currents after plunging from their wooden boat off Tatawa island on Thursday afternoon. They drifted 20 miles from their dive site before swimming to Rinca, their last chance to avoid being swept into the open ocean.
"We struggled against the current for several hours, but eventually stopped," Laurent Pinel, 31, of France, told The Sunday Times of London. The group tied their diving vests together to preserve energy, he said. Once on the island, they scraped mussels from the rocks for food, he said.
The divers ran into the Komodo dragon on Friday afternoon. The next day, rescuers aboard one of 30 boats searching the waters spotted them waving frantically on the shore and took them to Flores island for medical treatment.
The area where the diving trip took place is famous for its rich marine diversity, including sharks, manta rays and sea turtles. But it is also known for its treacherous and unpredictable seas.
Recommended only for experienced divers, it is in a place where the Indian and Pacific Oceans meet, creating currents that converge and separate. Whirlpools and eddies can pull divers downwards.
"We're safe, but absolutely exhausted and dehydrated," Charlotte Allin, a 25-year-old British diver, was quoted by The Sunday Times of London as telling her parents from the hospital where the group was taken.
Komodo dragons, which can grow up to 10 feet long and weigh as much as 365 pounds, are only found in the wild on Rinca and Komodo island. There are believed to be 4,000 left in the world.
Thousands of tourists visit the area in eastern Indonesia each year to see the lizards in their natural habitat. They are normally shown around the arid and rocky island by guides who carry large, forked sticks to ward off the animals.
LOL!
Talk about out of the frying pan and into the fire.
There are only 4000 komodo dragons left in the world? And they pelted it with rocks and wood? I hope these guys are prepared to do time when the animal rights nuts press charges.
Really tame by comparison. Those komodo dragons are one of the few animals I won't watch any show about. While I realize God created them and there's reasoning behind that, these animals are so repulsive to me they remind me of why I never liked boiled okra. Slimy, oozing saliva full of killing bacteria and the manner in which they hunt would seem to me to be pure torture. Bite your victim, follow them while your saliva slowly kills them from disease and then have dinner when the victim eventually dies.
Blech, gotta go now as the visual is enough to turn my stomach.
BUT--I do have to deal with California Sea Lions, just about every night. Sometimes in the morning, too. Like this morning. Lucky for me they are easy enough to intimidate.
All I want or need to do, is to get to the boat, or get from the boat to land...
The really big bulls (the older, more experienced bulls) pretend to sleep while keeping their heads pointed AWAY from the ladder. Then I just sneak on by...
The younger ones cause a ruckus, which I wouldn't mind so much, 'cept it's like they are hauling out on the front porch, blocking the doorway --- so in the water they must go--- I make 'em jump in and get wet. They hate that...
But the big whoppers weighing in at 600-900 lbs., they've been around, and are used to me by now. If they just play it cool, and act like they don't see me climbing down the ladder, or just "chill", if they notice, then I can scamper across and get "home".
I really don't want to get bit by one of those things.
You should see the floating dock, when a big one jumps out of the water onto it --- it temporarily swamps just about the whole float. The suddenness of it is startling...
It's late. By now, the big whoppers are probably sleeping. Years ago, there was one particular bull --- at times I'd step off the ladder, right over his head. But he was so used to it, I'd be able to make the necessary few steps to get to the boat, before he raised his head and snorted/blowed. After which he'd just go back to sleep, after me gently cooing at him some reassurance.
That went on for years. I kinda miss that one. We seemed to trust one another. I didn't want to force him into the water once he was hauled out and dry, and he didn't mind me much crossing through his own personal space, on my way to my own.
This current crop has more than a few young bulls that I'm not having much luck training. There are too many at once, along with some mouthy barking cows. Once one of 'em goes off, most all of 'em get agitated. Except for some of the old bulls, who know, and remember that they are on MY dock!
In the mornings, they all stare as I clamber up the ladder, to the higher wharf above. I wonder if they are thinking, "how does he do that?", or if they are thinking more like Howard Cosell saying, "look at that little monkey go!?"
Just don’t look at them wrong or yell at them or some Sea Lion protection group will be all over you.
Ugh, me, too. I can't even stand to see the commercials for the programs without saying out loud, "Ugh! Disgusting things!!" I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who doesn't think they are worth air time.
One must wonder if Hell might be full of them. Grim thought.
What strikes me about this article is if I was going diving, would I pick the most treacherous currents in the world infested with sharks and rays near an island with man-eating lizards? Uh, no. I have a functioning cerebral cavity. I don't eat boogers and I don't disguise myself as a seal, fight the tide across sharkland over to godzilla Island. But that's just me.
I guess I will shut up about the squirrels in my back yard....I do not have to worry about them biting and I never have step over them to get to my car.
That’s just too big for a lizard. They don’t look as though they have a natural enemy.
Even looking at sea mammals crosswise equates to "harassment" in the eco-extremist's silly-ass minds. If a guy is a fisherman, anyway...were all guilty before trial, with those sorts.
They've taken good ideas, and good principles to such extremes, and are more than willing to take them even further, they've about ruined us all. Nothing or no-one much can seem to stop them from forcing everyone into contortions, so that even animals whose numbers now exceed those levels which they were at, back before Europeans first arrived, must be put before all else.
Memo to environmentalist lurkers; I'm not talking about migratory FUR seals here, I'm talking about California Sea Lions. The Indians used to whack 'em over the head with big sticks REGULARLY, for food and fur. Since Indians don't hunt them anymore, and everyone else leaves them alone (fisherman used to be able to shoot them, now they are forced to stand by and watch them steal salmon off their trolling lines-- except this year, when there is to be NO salmon season in CA waters, period) the population has exploded. Though environmentalist types will still express "concern" for CA Sea Lions..just keep them cards and letters (and checks!) rollin' in, folks!
Also Nevermind the fact that the float they are hauling out on is man-made, and linked to private property. Or the fact that those floats were there for YEARS before sea lions started using them regularly. That is an indisputable fact. But one of many the environmentalist extremists are grossly IGNORANT of. One can put irrefutable proof right under their noses, and they'll STILL deny it, when it runs counter to their oh so enlightened, oh so reasonable agenda.
The population of those critters has at the very least doubled, if not tripled in the last 30-40 years. They are in no danger whatsoever from me.
Yet all these facts might not help me much. If they hauled me into court, I just hope any potential jurors whom would be highly prejudiced against all mankind, but totally in favor of all animals and "nature", blow their cover by openly showing such predilection of thought, so I could attempt to have them ousted from the jury, and failing that, possibly set up grounds for appeal.
The trouble with hoping for that sort of defense, is so many have been for so long LIED to by the enviros, and the lies told over so many times, far too many people think such enviro-lies are gospel truth --- so they try and make up for someone ELSE doing something wicked to the environment (and getting away with it), by punishing the poor chap who is right in front of them.
The key word here is the definition of harassment. Lawmakers had one set of ideas in mind when writing such. Enviro's have another. So one could get punished heavily--- for next to nothing, which certainly wasn't the law's intent. Oh, doing nothing except for refusing to let wild animals run them off from their home. Upsetting the balance of nature by not sharing dinner with them giving them my dinner, too.
Wait--- one isn't supposed to feed them. That's a good law, actually
This morning, there were no sea lions on my end of the float. There was a big boy down on one end...he didn't care a bit I was there. Just raised an eyelid in my direction, to which I responded with a gentle low volume "good morning" in about the same tones as one would talk to a small child. Which is what I call them. "Children".
I told him, "now, now, just go back to sleep...", which he did! LOL. He just closed his eyes, exhaled heavily, blinked a couple of times, before going right back into total "relax".
It's hard to train them nowadays also, since the wharf configuration has changed, and now tourists come and talk down at them all the time, which bothers the sea lions every now and then, getting them all roused up and barking.
It used to be only me and the boys, and a few others at the nearby fish house which no longer buys much fish over the dock, since the protectionists do-gooders have made most of the fishing grounds "off limits" to commercial fisherman of every kind, not just those hoping to catch a few salmon.
Me, I wasn't a salmon fisherman...much...though I've worked as a boat puller (deckhand) a time or two in the past on salmon trollers. And purse seiners in AK, too...but more bottom trawling than anything. Which makes me very eeE-VIL, indeed!
The “film” was beyond pathetic, but Verne’s novel was vivid and inspiring when I was still a teen.
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