About Sea Escape Aero
I remember the smell of diesel and salt mixing on the dock at Labuan Bajo just after 6:30am, the sun barely up, and Sea Escape Aero already humming beside the jetty. Her bow sliced through silver water as we pulled away, the coastline shrinking fast behind us. At 30 knots, we made Kelor in under an hour – I still remember the shock of cold water when I jumped in, the coral just below the surface teeming with parrotfish and clownfish weaving through anemones.
We didn’t waste time. By 9:15, we were gliding over to Batu Bolong, masks on before Sea Escape Aero even stopped. A school of fusiliers parted around us as manta rays circled below, their wings brushing the thermocline. The crew had chilled towels waiting when we climbed back – a small thing, but it mattered in that tropical heat. One of the guides pointed out a juvenile blacktip reef shark tucked under an overhang near Sebayur, which we almost skipped but the captain rerouted for ten extra minutes.
Lunch was served on deck between Pink Beach and Komodo Village – grilled fish, papaya, and cold coconut water, all laid out on a foldable table near the cabin entrance. We didn’t land at Komodo Island for the full dragon walk, just a short boardwalk loop with a ranger, but seeing one of them tear into a goat carcass was surreal. Then it was off to Manta Point again, where a larger ray – nearly four metres wide – hovered above me, its gills pulsing like bellows. The sun was high, but the wind off the bow kept us from overheating.
The cabin itself was compact but sealed tight against engine noise, with AC that actually worked. I didn’t sleep, but two guests did during the return leg. The toilet was small but functional, and there was fresh water in a blue barrel near the stern for rinsing off. We stopped briefly at Taka Makassar – water so clear it looked fake, like a postcard – then made Kanawa just before 4pm for one last swim around the rocky outcrops where octopuses darted between crevices.
Back on board, the crew handed out dry towels and iced tea. The ride home was smoother, the sea calming as we neared Labuan Bajo’s lights. I checked my phone – no signal all day, and somehow that felt like a win. My shoulders were sun-warmed, ears still echoing with the hum of twin diesels, but I kept replaying that manta’s glide, the way it ignored us completely, utterly in its element.
