Day 8: Gili Air

We finally got a chance to snorkel and see what all of this whole “Dive Gili” thing is about. After another morning at a local ‘warung’ or diner, making friends with locals who love Bollywood (again), we got a deal on some snorkel gear and hiked our distance to a restaurant we’d been a day before to get out in the water and see if we can go and find some sea turtles that everybody had been saying you could see pretty easily.

I had no idea there was so much sea life so close to the shore! We saw sea urchins, rainbow coloured fish, grass-green coloured fish, some snake-like thing in the water, a whole school of fish (100s if not 1000s of fish), and some big fish (who I’m sure is actually not that big, but it sure felt like it at the time!). It was pretty incredible. The water is so warm to go

in there is no transition at all between sitting on the beach and being in the water. No awkward, uncomfortable getting cold when you get in or out here! Tragically, after we came out and had our fresh juices, the tide had gone out – and when the tide has gone out here, your ship has sailed on snorkeling. Remember those sea urchins? It’s so shallow, that if you try to snorkel over them and you’ve had a big lunch, you may be at risk of getting deflated by one of those sea urchins! No thank you! Tragically, we didn’t see any sea turtles!

Time to get out, try to play the ukulele I brought with, attempt to get better at playing chess and prolong the defeat that is going to be delivered to me by Pallavi, and have a few beers on the side of the water, looking at the volcanos of the isle of Lombok across the water from us.

One more day on Gili Air, try to see sea turtles, repack the bags, figure out how to get to Flores, and gear up for our early a.m. off the day after. But that is for future me to figure out.