Diving and Island hopping

The boat from Lembongan to Gili, wasnt the best ride although compared to the boat from Bali to Lembongan, it was luxury. We all piled into this tiny fisherman's boat which took us out of the bay to the real boat for the rest of the journey. It started off all ok, until we got right out to sea. Sooo so rocky, sar got given 3 sick bags just incase...We needed Rach's wristbands!
We arrived a couple of hours later in the boiling hot sun. The beach looked amazing!!! Gili was so quiet, no motorbikes or cars, just bicycles and horse and cart which was cool. With our bags we decided we would stay off the main strip where it would be even quieter. Luckily this Indonesian guy, Montana led us down the beaten track and to his bungalows which were really nice. We agreed a price and made ourselves at home. We were right out in the country nextdoor to all the locals, we had a hammock, and a garden and to top it off we had a kitten to play with! Ki-Ki....she was a cool cat!

The first thing we thought we'd do on our way to the beach was to look for a good diving place to book 2 dives with. I really wanted to do Shark Point as I had heard it was the best site to do, and we thought Manta Point would be cool, to possibly see a manta ray. We booked up to dive the next day and take a camera again with the 1st dive place we found. Later we were on our way to the beach and we passed another dive place, Gili Dives, ran by an English guy and a few english instructors who seemed really cool. It turns out the guy we were talking to (and later diving with) was from Bury and knew Jodie!! small world! He recommended another site where we would be guarenteed to see turtles. This had to be a definite!...We booked up with these for the next day and went back to cancel the first place.
We finally got to the beach around 4 which was a bit pointless, and soon headed back to get ready for tea. Both of us were not hungry at all, purely because nothing on any of their menu's are very appealing anymore...We are just craving a chippy or some real pub food, not noodles, or noodles topped with a fried egg or noodle soup!!



We had to be up and ready for our dive at 8.30am where we got all our equipment ready and headed on the boat to the site. We did shark point first which was cool, although we didn't see a shark, (well we didnt see much really as both our masks had fogged up which was annoying, we had to keep cleaning our masks underwater!! not the best thing you want to be doing!!haha) but we did see a LOT of turtles, and 1 was HUGE! his head was literally the size of mine and he just swam straight underneath us, it was amazing!! We also saw a cuttlefish which was strange, they look more like an octopus than a fish and they change colour etc with their surroundings.....really cool!!
Also as we had the camera we were snapping away, I took a picture of a triggerfish and the flash went off, which set him off....the next thing I knew he was coming for me...and they have MASSIVE teeth!!!
Although we could see a little bit as we kept clearing our masks it was really annoying and ruined the dive for us both, but we were looking forward to our next dive at 12
This time our masks were perfect (before you dive, spit in your mask! sounds sick but works) and we were down for almost an hour as it was a shallow dive. We saw Hawkbill turtles as well as green turtles :-)

We arranged to do another dive the next day, deciding on shark point again and this time we saw a shark which was really cool. The next day we decided to have a day off and lay on the beach ALLLL day! We had a great lazy day and ended up going to watch the Man Utd Vs Liverpool game which was a great game! Even Sar was getting into it by the end! Until Man Utd got the 3rd goal!!!
The next day we decided to do another dive, I decided to go to Deep Turbo which was amazing, it was like being in a different world, the coral was all unspoilt and sooo surreal!..and we saw another shark :-)..Sar went with Max to do Halik again and had the best dive in the world....63mins, and saw lots more turtles, the REAL nemos!! Morays, a banded seasnake (if you get bitten by 1 you're dead in 6 seconds!!!...luckily they only have teeth at the back of their jaw!) and lion fish...I was very jealous when she came back!
As we had done 4 dives they said our 5th would be half price so we planned to have 2 days on the beach and then do our last dive. However when it came round to it, max lauren and Jamie had gone and Dan was busy so we had a french girl take us, who was really cool in the end. We thought at first, it was going to be rubbish but we had fun.

The 2 days in between we lay on the beach allllll dayyy and it was wayyy hot!!! we burnt our noses yet again every day! every morning we would get breakfast, have a lombok coffee (so good...dont drink them in the evening though, you won't sleep!) and lay on the beach. That's where we stayed until around 4-5ish! We even got lunch as a takeaway so we could eat it on the beach and not move!! We rented out snorkels 1 day which was a lot of fun, even though we felt really ill after!. You swim about 15yards out and you see soooo much, we saw a turtle swimming around, barracuda and lots of Dories!!! That made Sar happy!! every dive we have never seen a Dorie and Sar had found them!
After 2 lazy days we had our last dive which was at 3, so we lay on the beach until then and then did the dive, it was around an old sunken wreck/pier which was awesome. Once we had done the dive and got back, we mentioned coming back around February and maybe doing our advanced, and they invited us to do an internship and do our divemaster course with them over the course of a few months which would be really cool!!!
1 More lazy day and we were off back to Bali for our flight to Sydney!! Originally we had planned to go to Gili Meno but we decided not to as we had heard there was nothing there! besides, Gili T had everything, a great beach, dive, snorkel and our bungalow was pretty cool! We had read Gili T was meant to be the party Island but it was dead every night! it was soooo quiet!!! which was definitely a good thing...
As for Ki-Ki, we couldn't get her out of our room the first few days and everytime we woke up and opened the door she would come running in.....after those few days we haven't found her!! Nor has her owner Montana which is a bit worrying!

Nearly 7 months travelling, covering India, Nepal, China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Indonesia, we are ready to arrive in Australia and have a permanent home for a while! An amazing 7 months and now for leg 2 of the trip!....Bring it on Sydney...