Wildlife encounters

Three animals bring people here, and each comes with a caveat worth knowing before you book.

Komodo dragons are seen on almost every visit and are not guaranteed on any. A park ranger walks the group along marked trails on Komodo or Rinca, usually near the ranger station where the animals gather, and you see them from a few metres away with a forked stick between you. It is calmer than it sounds. Rinca is the quieter of the two islands and, in most guides' opinion, the better walk.

Manta rays at Manta Point are seasonal in the sense that they are always around and not always where you are. The site is a cleaning station and the snorkel is a drift, so you go with the current and the tender collects you. When it works you swim above three or four animals with a four-metre span; when it does not you have had a nice drift over coral.

Whale sharks in Saleh Bay are the reliable one, and the reason is uncomfortable: they gather at the bagan, the fixed fishing platforms, where there is bait in the water. Sightings are close to certain. Whether that is the encounter you want is a fair question and we would rather raise it than have you meet it at 5am on a boat.

Beyond the three, the Banggai day trip finds spinner dolphins on the crossing often enough to mention and not often enough to promise. The rule across all of it: any operator selling a guarantee on a wild animal is selling you the guarantee, not the animal.