A team of European divers fell out of a boat among treacherous ocean currents and drifted helplessly, overnight, in an ordeal that would remind people of the frigtening film Open Water if American consumers hadn’t instead spent their money that year on dreck like Matrix Reloaded and Elf. After 12 hours adrift the group swam against currents to reach the last island before the vast Indian Ocean: Rinca, one of two places that still harbors wild Komodo dragons. Komodos are 10-foot, 350 pound ambush predators that hide until a man-sized animal gets close enough and then run balls-out straight at you. Their saliva is famously dangerous because of a weird bacterial brew that can kill a bitten deer from septic shock within a day.
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.
[…] The next day, rescuers aboard one of 30 boats searching the waters spotted them waving frantically [I bet. -ed.] on the shore and took them to Flores island for medical treatment.
Next year, Marseilles.
E Stamm
Elf… dreck? Have you even seen it? Along with ‘A Christmas Story’, our family now watches ‘Elf’ every Christmas. It is a modern classic that only a heartless grinch couldn’t love. And that Zooey Deschanel is one hot cutie. I will, however, agree with you on that Matrix sequal. That WAS dreck (and yes, I did see it.)
jag
That’s Indian Ocean, actually.
Since Komodo dragons live in Indonesia, why hasn’t Barack Obama denounced and rejected these reptiles yet? I mean, he’s responsible for the actions of everyone who has ever been in geographic proximity to him, right?
bud
No mention of polar bears?
Bob In Pacifica
Thank god Will Ferrell wasn’t hiding in wait to spring on them and cover them in maple syrup.
demimondian
I’m a little puzzled by the divers’ story, FWIW. Komodo are notoriously…err…determined once they pick a target.
And why not? They’re effectively invulnerable; there’s no animal on Earth which can effectively escape their charge, and their bite is fatal.
You’ll have to pardon me, then — this smells like a setup to me.
Jon H
“I’m a little puzzled by the divers’ story, FWIW. Komodo are notoriously…err…determined once they pick a target.”
Maybe they hadn’t actually picked a target, and were just ambling into the vicinity. Also, maybe they’d eaten already, and weren’t terribly hungry.
1jpb
Those movies could be worse: Ferrell in Matrix, and Reeves in Elf.
Crusty Dem
I agree with you about Reeves in elf, 1jpb, but I think Ferrell would’ve been perfect for The Matrix. “You are the one” – “One, what?” Come on, he would’ve made it work… Plus, watching his belly bounce in the CGI would’ve been awesome.
Tim F.
That puzzled me as well. I have to agree with Jon H that the lizards might have just been curious.
As they say with sharks – you might see them around, but you won’t see the one that kills you.
demimondian
I’m thinking Christopher Reeves in Matrix Reloaded, myself. Now, that would have been truly…unique.
I hope.
Perry Como
Perhaps when the divers were hitting the lizards with sticks, a large black monolith was standing behind the divers.
ThePirate
Open Water sucked.
Bob In Pacifica
I’ll give the divers the benefit of the doubt for now. That’s a long way to set up a phony story. There are reasons why the Komodo didn’t attack. Maybe it was hungry, maybe the five divers were confusing it with a wealth or riches.
Bob In Pacifica
I’ll give the divers the benefit of the doubt for now. That’s a long way to set up a phony story. There are reasons why the Komodo didn’t attack. Maybe it was hungry, maybe the five divers were confusing it with a wealth of riches.
Bot LaBeer
Question for anyone: What do you think of the concept of Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) running as Barack Obama’s VP?
Jon H
“I have to agree with Jon H that the lizards might have just been curious.”
Also, maybe it was just looking for a nice sunny spot to bask in.
When it arrived, and was pelted with stones and sticks, it said “Bah, fucking tourists. Goddamn beach is going to hell with these bastards. It just ain’t the same as when I was an egg. Feh, I’m out of here.”
Keep an eye on Overheardonkomodoisland.com, I’m sure it’ll turn up.
Jon H
“What do you think of the concept of Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) running as Barack Obama’s VP?”
She’s from Florida.
We need to minimize their role in government, not expand it.
sher
Open Water was good but so was Elf!
w vincentz
Bot Labeer,
I like Debbie. Her concern for the manatees is very good.
I think she might be ok, but not as a VP.
A gov from a rustbelt state would be a more solid ticket. Picking a different female than Hillary would only cause outrage. We need a bit of healing now.
How about Debbie Wasserman for Dept of Interior?
El Cid
The same Debbie Wasserman-Schultz who refused to help campaign for Democrats challenging sitting Congressional Republicans in Florida?
Yeah, her as VP? That doesn’t sound smart to me at all. Democrats should want to beat Republicans, not help them keep their jobs.
TenguPhule
I want this travel agent booking Karl Rove’s next vacation.
Bot LaBeer
That’s not a bad idea at all.
AkaDad
The win. You haz it.
Dennis - SGMM
How about Debbie Wasserman for Dept of Inferior?
Bot LaBeer
All true. She’s not the only Floridian in the House who did that, but that’s still not an excuse.
I’ve been talking with my wife (Hillary die-hard) about folks from Hillary’s camp who might be better than HRC as VP and other than maybe Rendell, Wasserman was the only other Clintonite I could remotely stand (mostly because her core policies are similar to Obama’s and she covers some demographics Obama has theoretical trouble with)
w vincentz
Bot LaBeer,
You’ve gotten me thinking about possible VP candidates. Not for Barack but for Johnnie McInsane.
Look at what Johnnie needs:
Someone with lots of media exposure during the past year.
Someone with youth.
Someone that’s a white female.
Someone that’s also not too intelligent.
Someone that really needs a job.
So…Johnnie’s VP should be none other than….
DRUM ROLL…..
Brittany Spears
dr. bloor
Wasserman would be a magnificent choice if Obama’s intention is to break McGovern’s record for Biggest Smackdown by the Electoral College.
Xenos
The Wasserman suggestion was joke, right?
Somebody, please tell me it was a joke.
rachel
Sure, why not? She is a Republican, isn’t she?
SamFromUtah
I dunno, that trip sounds like more fun than the NRO cruise.
w vincentz
rachel,
Why not? is right. She’s a Refug,
Notice Tim’s subliminal words…
“diver”
“helplessly”
“overnight”
“adrift”
“man-sized”
“balls-out”
“saliva”
“weird”
“bacterial brew”
“septic shock”
Looks like Brittany is a winner as much as Johnnie.
ps…
Tim, great minds think alike. Nice that I picked up on your real message.
GO Brittany!!!
rob!
oh, man! that’s where the Clintons are vacationing. they can’t catch a break this weekend!
Kevin
How to defend yourself against
fresh fruitKimodo Dragonstballou
“Their saliva is famously dangerous because of a weird bacterial brew that can kill a bitten deer from septic shock within a day.
This phenomenon is actually common among many reptilian and mammalian predator species, and the particular bacteria found in wild Komodo dragons is readily treated with commonly available antibiotics.
w vincentz
Kevin,
Funny link. Especially “passion fruit”.
Q: How to defend?
A: Make sure she doesn’t save a blue dress that can be used as evidence.
demimondian
I didn’t know it was common. I knew that it was true of the Komodo dragon and the Tasmanian Devil — what are other examples.
(Other than one example with which we are all quite familiar — H. sapiens, the bite of which often causes septic shock, due to a witch’s brew of anaerobic bacteria which colonize their mouths.)
D.N. Nation
Dude, Open Water sucked.
DougJ
This sounds an awful lot like something from the director’s cut of Apocalypse Now.
Delia
It sounds like an outtake from Lost. Or wait. Maybe it’s next season’s series finale. Or the for real series finale. Or the really for real series finale. Or whatever.
YellowJournalism
Say what you want about the Matrix sequels, but Elf is on its way to being a holiday classic. (I hate to call something a classic without at least ten or fifteen years of love behind it.) Elf has a great story that pays homage to the classics of the past, has pretty good direction from a guy who was still transitioning from acting to directing, and has James Caan. Everything is better with James Caan.
Except Flesh and Bone. That movie sucked, and not even Sonny Corleone could save it.
And Open Water? I was rooting for the sharks midway through the movie, although I thought the final few minutes were pretty moving as she made her decision to just let go. But a few minutes do not make a movie good overall.
Stevenovitch
um, exactly how is Open Water any better than Matrix Reloaded?
Surabaya Stew
Do you suppose they will come back to Indonesia again? Personally, I happen to love the place very much, but it’s understandable if they never return! Bali is the best place for most visitors to start; Rinca is too hardcore even for me…
Paul Weimer
Which I first heard in a dvd extra to the remake of Dawn of the Dead. (Its given as an explanation in a fake telecast downplaying the zombie plague”)
The Dude Abides
There are only a handful of reported Komodo dragon attacks on humans over the past thirty years, and it’s not like people rarely encounter them. Just about every day of the year, tourists in Komodo National Park are led by guides through dragon habitat. True, most of these encounters are on Komodo Island and not Rinca Island, where the divers drove off the dragon on the beach. However, it’s pretty likely that the lizard was just curious, and not in attack mode. Even if it were in attack mode, its typical prey doesn’t fight back much. I can easily see an aggressive lizard being driven off by only one or two determined adult humans, and in this instance, there were five physically active people.
b. hussein canuckistani
Maybe there were seven divers, and they don’t talk about the ones they fed to the dragons.
Richardson
Worst. Vacation. Ever. = Hysterical
Screw Marseilles. It’s still too risky you’d wake up drifting toward Algeria. I think Lake Constance, Switerland will be more like it.
Seitz
I’d venture to guess that in the wild, most of the targets lack opposable thumbs, and therefore the dragons aren’t used to being pelted with rocks. It may have just decided to wait for a meal that wasn’t firing things at it.
truth machine
Dude, induction is not a logically valid form of reasoning. You’re like the 9/11 conspiracists who insist that no other building has ever collapsed like that — as if anything could be validly concluded from that, even if it were true.
Punchy
My thoughts exactly. They took a look at the humans and went, “damn, those fuckers are LARGE. And they keep 4-seam fastballing the volcanic rock off our domes. Lets go find us a Quarter Pounder with Cheese.”
cdc
I traveled to Rinca a few years back… the dragons we saw were pretty darn lazy, actually; but maybe the ones on the back side of the island are a little hungrier, not having access to a ready supply of Tourist Chow or whatever.
Our boat broke down on the way back to town, making for a heck of a long day – guess we had it easy, really.
calling all toasters
Perhaps they serenaded it with “there she is, your Komodo draaaagon” ala Bert Parks.
Duros Hussein 62
Next year, Marseilles.
Fuck that. Bruges.
Original Lee
Bruges….mmmm, wild eclairs in their native habitat.