Open Water Travel: Fighting Komodo Dragons Edition
6/10/2008 at 4:01 PM
Tags: Diving, Outdoor Travel, Adventure Travel (all tags)
We like to think of extreme sports as those that involve gravity and humans flying through the air in unnatural ways. But lately scuba diving is looking more and more like a high-risk endeavor, too.
First there was the report of the Australian couple left by their tour operator in shark-infested waters for 19 hours. Then this past weekend we learned about the group of five divers in Indonesia that got pulled away from their wooden boat by a strong rip current, survived 12 hours in shark-infested waters and then landed on the island of Rinca to confront an aggressive Komodo dragon.
The group of three British citizens, a French national and a Swede fought off the deadly 10-foot-long, 350-pound Komodo by throwing rocks and their weight belts, keeping it at bay until the next day when a local fishing boat rescued them from the island.
Tired and hungry but otherwise unharmed, the group of dragon slayers is thankful to be home. We hope they take up a safer activities in the future. How 'bout skinny skiing or bullfights on acid?
Related Stories:
· Stranded Divers Chase off Komodo Dragon [AP, via Yahoo]
· Troubled Waters [The Age]
· Diving coverage [Jaunted]
[Photo from "Open Water": IMDb]
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