The journey to Kanawa Island, located between Indonesia’s islands of Komodo and Flores, is memorable. Most visitors to Kanawa arrive by boat from Labuan Bajo, on the west coast of Flores, around 90 minutes flying time west from Bali.
We hired a local fishing boat for the day trip, at a cost of about AU$100 (Indonesian Rupiah 1,000,000). The journey began a little late when our enquiry about the location of the life jackets, specifically ordered, revealed their absence. Our skipper and his mate, somewhat reluctantly, eventually borrowed them from an adjoining boat, and the trip began.
We cruised past the bare dry hills of Rinca Island, reputably the home of more dragons than Komodo itself, pockets of dense forest, water of deepest azure, then turquoise, depending on its depth and after about 90 minutes we arrived at Kanawa Island.
The island has just one small resort consisting of modest bungalows and a restaurant. The main attraction is underwater, with extraordinary coral and colourful fish just a few metres off the beach.
We spent the day variously lolling about in the deep shade of the beach-side trees, reading, snorkelling, watching the progress of a few visiting boats and thinking about being shipwrecked.
This is my contribution to Tiffin’s A-Z Guidebook, this month starting with the letter K.
Sound lovely. I’m always a little envious when you day trip somewhere nice then have to leave whilst a few lucky punters get to stay behind and enjoy the resort without tourists. I laughed at your life jacket story. The very first thing Mr Tiffin said when we arrived in Bali a few weeks ago was ‘welcome to the place that work health and safety forgot about’.
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