Gilis

On to the Gili islands, yet another last minute decision. I’m really glad I’ve stuck with my plan of not having a plan, because everything really all falls into place once you’re traveling.  You can do all the research and reading you want, but once you’re on the road, you meet people, talk to locals, hostels etc. and before you know it you’re tagging along with another group of backpackers to a destination you didn’t even know existed.  I take comfort when things like this happen, and the Gilis were just that. The group of dive girls I met were going to the islands after they took another course, so I went off to explore the first, main island (Gili Trawangan) a day or two before they were planning to be there.

I hopped on the ferry and was there within a couple hours, after a short stop in Lombok for them to fix one (of eight) of the boat motors. When I stepped off the boat, it was pouring rain, and things on this car-free island were getting a bit hectic. The streets started filling with water, and the people, bicycles and horses were wading through it to get where they needed to be.

I had some dinner at a restaurant and watched the employees try to divert the water in various places to keep it dry, and went for a glorious swim in the warm water & rain. I waded the streets for a while and headed back to my hostel. That night the power went out for a few hours, which apparently happens quite frequently on these islands. Different kind of living already… but I loved it.

The next morning I woke up to sunshine and the streets were already drying up, while the locals scooped and diverted the remaining water. By the next day it didn’t even look like anything had happened. I went snorkeling and signed up for one dive – both were amazing. You really only need a snorkel and mask here because every island is a droplet of sand, each one surrounded entirely by reef. The only sad thing is that some years ago the local fisherman used bombs to fish and destroyed a lot of the reef in the process. There is now a movement to stop this from happening, and some coral restoration projects in place, and a tax applied for anyone that dives on the islands. Some areas are more affected than others – with graveyards of coal, but other places (especially the deeper you go) still have some beautiful and plentiful coral. Snorkeling that day I saw lots of fish, a sea snake and a cool small jellyfish:

On the dive I saw a some turtles, lobster and some sort of crab/shrimp:

I hiked up to the lookout that night – you could see Lombok and Bali off in the distance:

I watched the sunset at a sunset bar (these sunset bars never seem to fail me) and when the sun went down some people started spinning fire poi. I talked with them and went back to show them my led poi, which they liked a lot. They were practicing to perform at a wedding reception down the road, so I went there to watch their performance using dragon staffs, poi, and fire fans. They were excited to “have a brother from America,” as they put it.

The next day Sarah, Diana and Loes arrived and we travelled together the rest of the trip. We walked around every island completely (you can do so in a couple hours if you walk constantly.)

That night we went on a night dive, the first time for all of us. It was so fun! We were all a bit nervous about being in the dark and losing each other, but it was actually a lot easier since we had torches, and could just look for the other lights. Night diving is a whole different game, like a scavenger hunt. You only have one light source and you need to search under every rock etc. to find things – when you do find something you get pretty excited! At night many more shellfish, octopus and different types of sea life come out to feed.

 

The next day Sarah and I did some snorkeling/freediving and saw some cool things too.  We saw this moray eel:

And free dived down to say hi to this guy:

There are really too many good underwater photos to put in one post, so you’ll really have to check out all of them for yourself later. One more picture that doesn’t have much of a subject matter, but a background to it…

This photo was taken at 15 meters deep, just with a mask & snorkel. I’m sure I could do better (and want to try) but it was fun to see how deep I could go, and convenient that I had a depth gauge on my camera.  I actually went to 14 meters deep and turned around to swim back to the surface, but realized I forgot to take a photo, so I turned around again and swam to what ended up being 15 meters to snap a quick photo. My goal is to free dive to 18 meters – since that’s the depth limit that an open water scuba diver can go to. 🙂 Just need a spotter to watch me!

The middle island is Gili Meno, which is the quietest of the islands – more of a place to have a honeymoon with the beach to yourself. However, we ran into one of these guys behind our bathroom door, which was the biggest gecko I’d seen – over a foot long! We just took our showers with one eye open while he watched…

Most notable on Gili Meno was the amazing Mama Yaya’s restaurant.  It was the cheapest one there, with great food, and we walked far to have it every day we were there.

Gili Air was the last island we went to – closest to the mainland of Lombok. Since we were closer to the mainland we hit the rain that we had been seeing on Lombok most every day, but it quickly passed as usual SE Asia storms do. We went on a couple dives there and got one of my favorite dive photos – me riding a bicycle underwater!

 

Apparently this bike was put here by a guy that owned it while living & diving on the Gilis and he rode this bike everywhere. When he had to leave, he left this bike behind underwater for all to enjoy. It’s located right next to Bounty Wreck – a sunken barge with reef growing on it.

We dove turtle point and saw probably over 10 turtles (some may have been the same ones though), as well as an octopus! Our dive master was very good at blowing air rings underwater with his hands. I tried and failed miserably, but he said it took him a good month or so to get it right:

He would blow them all the time, trying to catch fish with them 🙂

The Gilis were amazing, and as the rumor went – you always end up staying way longer than you thought you would – a good thing. Sarah actually ended up going back there to do her dive masters.

Had a great time with all these girls, glad I could join them!

 

See all the photos for the Gilis here

Also, the ones for Bali are back here