A photo voyage with two good hours at each end of the day

Day one ends at Kalong, and it is the better of the two ends. In October the sun goes down at 17:55, and the mangrove islet between Komodo and Rinca empties of flying foxes in a long procession over about half an hour. The boat stays at anchor, so you shoot from the deck with the light fading behind you, and a long lens and a charged battery do most of the work.

Do not hurry the first minutes. The bats leave in no particular order, and the best frames come when the sky has gone from orange to the colour of a slate. Dinner waits, and the crew of 9 knows it.

Photographers are sensitive to what lies between the two good hours, and that is where a boat differs from a bus. Vhale has an outdoor dining room that gives shade at lunch, and an indoor one for when the glare is too much. It has a sundeck, and an outdoor chill area with a day bed. The afternoon is spent in a chair and not in a queue for one. The light at Pink Beach is softer in the morning, and its sand takes its tint from fragments of red coral, a thing a camera records better than a description.

Taka Makassar has a sandbar with little shade, and the shallow reef beside it is worth a snorkel with a camera in a waterproof case. The sea decides on each stop; the captain chooses the order, and we promise the stops on the route, not the weather over them.

Under a private charter, neither the guide nor the photo or video documentation, aerial work included, is part of the fare. They are on request, and we quote them apart. A hired photographer and a drone are two separate arrangements, and the permit a drone needs from the park is in no price, so ask us before you pack one.

The open-trip seat is different, because it carries the guide and the full documentation. If you are a single photographer who wants Padar and Kalong without hiring a boat, the seat on a Monday or Friday sailing is the cheaper route, from IDR 4,450,000 (≈ USD 273) a person. Either way, your own cameras are your own business, and the days leave them plenty of time. Light is good early and late, and the hours between belong to the day bed.

A photography club of 24 divides the 3D2N whole-boat fare of IDR 148,000,000 (≈ USD 9,080) to IDR 6,170,000 (≈ USD 379) each. Twenty photographers pay IDR 7,400,000 (≈ USD 454), and at 28 the share is IDR 5,290,000 (≈ USD 325). The fare carries the transfers both ways, all meals, snacks, free-flow water, tea, coffee, milk and juice, and the snorkel gear.

It leaves out the park package, flights, hotels either side, tips and any alcohol, and on a charter the documentation too. Under twenty, a seat is the cheaper way to sleep beside the same ridge, and it carries the documentation.