The Gili Islands

Once I realized I wasn't going to be able to surf every day that I was in Indonesia as originally planned, and spending several days touristing around the inland, I decided it was time to get back to the beach to participate in my second favorite thing to do in the ocean.  Scuba Diving!  So I took a bus, to a boat, to the island of Gili Air just off the coast of Lombok.  There are three Gili islands.  They are all pretty small, (I walked all the way around Air in 80 minutes) but that just means there is lots of reef surrounding them.  So it was an obvious place to go for some scuba. 

The Gili Islands.  Gili Air is on the right.

Where it points to Gili Trawangan is where I was.

There are no motorized vehicles on the island.  Just sandy paths and small horse drawn carts work as taxis in case you need to take your luggage to one of the villas far away from the spot on the beach where boats dropp off/pick up.  There is no proper pier, boats just tie up to driftwood or palm trees.  And it was awesome!  After the intensity of Bali the quiet pace here was really nice. 

 

My accommodation was about 20 yards back from the beach so it was very affordable, and it was right next door to the dive center Oceans 5 where I wanted to book all my dives.  

My cottage

Where I stayed.

 

The diving was really good.  It wasn't quite like the Barrier Reef, but still really good.  I saw some things I've never seen before.  Like sea horses, nudibranches, shrimp and eels.  Of course there were all the normal creatures and turtles and sharks.  Plus the ocean floor terrain was different than anything I've seen before, and I did a muck dive for the first time.  That was way more interesting than I expected.  In three days I only did five dives total, but I did swim around most the island too. 

 

weird method for getting back on the boat

 

Don't touch!  Lionfish.

 

 

 

Seahorse!

Tiny yellow box fish!

 

Another Sea Horse

 

 

 

In total I was in Gili for five days and four nights.  I will admit that on my first day there I was unsure.  I didn't know what I was going to do for five days on that tiny speck of land.  But not doing much of anything ended up being awesome.  The food at the restaurants was surprisingly good.  All the people were very nice.  It was a great way to end my time in Indonesia!