We had breakfast while we were motoring to the northern part of the main Komodo Island. (There are many, it’s a collection of islands actually). I suddenly wasn’t feeling too good and took some antibiotics and had a small nap while Edd played trains on my iPad. His mum gave me immodium, which in the end was the saving grace to my condition - my condition improved and I managed to continue the day as normal.
 
We dropped anchor and were taken to the beach; we were going to have a BBQ (braai) for lunch, so all the bean bag chairs were taken over via the speed boat as well as a gazebo. The guests were taken over on the other speed boat and we all went for a snorkel (the divers had gone for a session at 7am, so they’d already had their first dive for the day). We saw the biggest sting ray I to date, it spanned two meters across with a sting that stuck out by about another two meters - pretty enormous. Our guide took his knife out to wake it up by tapping its tail and then Edd decided it would be a good idea to swim after it. Everyone heard me scream at him under water; I was not impressed.
 
We then went to the beach to have a relax and join Edd’s mum and the divers the people that had opted out of a snorkel. The sand was pink, so this was automatically my favourite place on the planet! Apparently it was due to red coral off the shore, that was eaten by the reef fish and digested, resulting in the pink bits between the sand, that made all of it look pink. Amazing. When can I move in?! One of the crew came around and asked us if we wanted to do water sports and Edd I definitely did; we asked the American daughter if she was interested and the 3 of us were taken back to the main boat to collect the skis, wakeboard and kneeboard, as well as the rope.
 
Edd went first, wanting to wake board, having not done it in many, many moons. He stood up on the 3rd attempt, briefly, but then got up and stayed up on his 4th attempt. I took videos of his success and he finally went down, face planting the water, which looked pretty painful. The American daughter went next, opting to ski - I’d tried this once before and found it incredibly difficult; she struggled initially to get up, but after Edd and I explained (more like dictated) that I wasn’t going to have a turn until she got up, she managed to get up on the skis and have quite a long ride, which was seriously impressive (because I had not been able to get up at all when I’d tried). It was my turn then and I decided to do the simplest of the 3 options: kneeboarding.
I think the guy that was driving the boat thought that I knew what I was doing, until he realised that I was bobbing in the water with my lifejacket on, not sure how to strap my legs in. It turned out that I wasn’t supposed to strap my legs in and the rope’s handle had to be attached to the front of the board, I was supposed to lie on it and then get up when it was moving. Funny joke.

 My first attempt at getting up was a completely failure, I didn’t fall off though, which was good; the second attempt was successful and I continue to hold onto the sides of the wakeboard, until the driver told me I had to pick the rope handle up and hold it instead of the board. I was a bit shocked at this, as I was not strapped onto the board at all; it was a successful attempt again and I had a long ride on the wake board; I had gained a bit of confidence and wanted to try and do a trick, or something a bit challenging - it turned out the boat taking a sharp corner was all the challenge I needed before face planting the surface of the ocean. It was great fun though, but lunch was ready so we had to go back to shore.
 
We got back to the beach and had lunch with everyone; I had the wahoo fish as the other options as chicken, which is not top of my list of favourite foods anyway. We finished lunch and were all lazying around, ready for a small sandy siesta, when the host told us we were going to be leaving in 10 minutes, to motor to the southern side of the island for the afternoon. Everything was packed up, taken across on fast boats and rearranged on deck. We then all sat on the top deck and soaked up the sunshine, while we motored down to the next beach.
 
We arrived 2 hours later and were taken to the beach where some of the staff set up for a bonfire. The divers were taken on their second dive, but the Americans had opted out - they wanted to chill out on the beach and snorkel instead. The water was much colder where we were now and Edd opted out of the session, leaving the Americans, Edd’s dad and I, to go off with our guide. The Americans opted out pretty quickly as well, because of the temperature of the water, but Edd’s dad and I continued with our guide for the duration of the trip - we saw 2 lion fish, 1 scorpion fish and these strange creatures that are a relative of the octopus family, but look like coral flowers with many tentacles. Apparently they came in a variety of colours, but I still need to find out what they’re called.
 
We turned back, as the visibility was poor and the water was freezing. They had set up a drinks table on the beach, with the bean bag chairs - we had to move them later on has the tide was coming in and the enormous bonfire they’d erected had to be moved to where we were sitting. The divers returned and joined us on the chairs, watching the sun set; the bonfire was lit shortly after and we all got merry on G&T’s and cocktails, while eating delicious salmon snacks, camembert cheese on biscuits and a variety of other nibbles.
 
We got back on to the boat, where dinner was served at 8pm - cream of mushroom soup, tempura seafood with white rice and a pancake served with cinnamon, apple and pineapple. It had been an absolutely amazing day, the best one on our entire trip and in my opinion, my favourite day.