Divers survive after battling off Indonesia dragon

LABUANBAJO (AFP) - Five European divers fought off a komodo dragon and survived on shellfish for two nights after being washed up on a deserted Indonesian island which doubles as a dragon reserve, a French survivor said Saturday.

Laurent Pinel, 31, said the group lived off mussels scavenged from the beach and had to repel the dragon during the 36 hours they waited to be spotted on tiny Rinca island in the Komodo National Park.

"On the beach a komodo dragon came amongst us yesterday afternoon," the Frenchman said, describing how the group had to pelt the dangerous reptile with rocks to scare it away.

"We had nothing to eat. We ate some kind of mussels scraped from the rocks," Pinel said after reaching a medical clinic in this sleepy port on Flores island.

He said the divers -- three Britons, himself and a Swede -- had spent about nine hours adrift at sea after being swept away from their dive boat in a strong current late Thursday afternoon.

Police earlier said the group had been adrift since they disappeared and were found by fishermen Saturday morning at sea off dragon-infested Rinca island, but Pinel dismissed this information as inaccurate.

He said they had struggled against the rip for several hours but eventually stopped swimming and tied themselves together by their diving vests to preserve energy.

Late Thursday night they saw another island and decided to make one more effort to reach land before being swept out of the relative protection of the Nusa Tenggara island chain and into the open sea.

"If we'd continued (to drift), it would have been the ocean," he said.

"We were exhausted. Everyone had cramps."

What they did not know was that Rinca is a reserve for komodo dragons, aggressive monitor lizards that can easily kill a human.

The group was found before midday on Saturday by national park rangers who took them to Labuanbajo, where they had set off Thursday for what was supposed to be a routine day of diving.

Pinel said they were in relatively good condition considering their ordeal.

There were emotional scenes at this Flores port as the divers returned on Saturday afternoon.

"They are really in good health with no wounds whatsoever. They walked by themselves and hugged each other and cried when they reached the port," local policeman Victor Jumadu said.

A British couple who own a dive shop in Labuanbajo were leading the divers in two groups when the wife's group was apparently swept away in strong currents on Thursday afternoon.

Dive master Ernest Lewandowski told AFP he was ecstatic that his wife, Kathleen Mitchinson, and their guests had been found safe.

"They are all alive and medical services are on standby. Thank God. I just want to hear my wife's voice," he said before rushing to the port to wait for their return.

Lewandowski said he and his wife, who own the Reefseekers Diving business on Flores, were leading two separate groups of divers when his wife's group got into difficulty.

He only noticed they were missing when his group surfaced an hour after entering the water.

A lack of fuel for aircraft had hampered the search and police had to call on fishermen to help after only three search boats could be deployed on Friday.

A commercial aircraft which was scheduled to fly over the area on Saturday morning had promised to circle for an hour but in the end it was not needed.

The divers were exploring reefs in the Komodo National Park -- famed for the giant lizard of the same name -- when they vanished.

The area lies about 500 kilometres (300 miles) east of the popular tourist island of Bali. It is well known for its teeming sealife at dive sites up to 40 metres deep.

Small reef sharks are common but divers say the main threat comes from strong currents formed by the combination of relatively shallow water, large depth variations and the channels formed between islands.