Gili Trawangan

Before I came to Indonesia I had planned to go out to the Gili Islands to dive, as I had heared that these dive sites are some of the best.  I knew that Gili T was the busiest one of them, meaning it would be part mayhem. I still booked a 4 day stay there, and well. Next time I will give it some more thought 🙂

In this island nation there are boats connecting most of the islands, and after just a two hour ride I stepped off the boat in Gili T. First impression, not so good. The beach didn`t look to good, it was just a whole lot of boats everywhere and the water was dirty. And crowded. Second impression stepping off the boat, not so good either. It had absolutely no charm to it, just a whole lot of bars and dive shops. I checked in at Manta Dive where I had booked my stay and planned to dive with. That was good though, I had a sweet bungalow with a beautiful outdoor shower, loved it!

I am struggling to find something to write, cuz I really never fell for this island. The weather was still bad (!!!!), and it was raining every day at some point. Maybe that made the whole thing just a little bit more miserable. But in anyway, I had some amazing diving experiences, so let me tell you about them 🙂

Day 1, first dive:  My divemaster for all dives on Gili was Adi, an awesome guy from Gili Air. Together with three other girls we headed out to Haans Reef, 20 min from Gili T. It had been over a month since my last dive, but it was all fresh in mind and I was stocked about getting in the water again. Rolling off the boat into the water is such a good feeling, and descending to the bottom is AWESOME! The site itself wasn`t the best I`ve seen, mostly just rocks and sand. But in the beginning I was working on my buoyancy so I didn`t mind too much. We were in the water for almost an hour, even though I thought I was running low on air way to fast. During the dive we saw turtles, a cowfish (this was apparently rare, so lucky me), boxfish, moray eel, stingrays and scorpion fish. It was awesome 😀 Later that night me and the girls went out for a dinner and some drinks. They were all traveling alone as well, but had stayed on the island for a couple of months training to become divemasters. I actually meet mostly girls who are traveling alone, and very few guys who do the same. Guys usually travel in packs. So on that note I`m simply gonna conclude with the fact that girls are tougher than boys 🙂

Day 2, second dive: Adi and me were ready again, and with a new team of divers we headed out to Manta Point. Deceiving name, as mantas are rare to come across here. In anyway,  learning from the previous day I improved a lot on my breathing and the air lasted me longer. This was only my 11^th dive in all, so still a very fresh diver with lots to learn. The reef surrounding the Gilis isn`t in a very good shape, as dynamite fishing has been practiced in the area. Luckily they don`t do it anymore, but it take ages for the reef to grow back again. But Manta Point was better than the day before. This dive was fantastic too, Adi was great at spotting stuff, and so he found a baby shark sleeping in a small cave. So cool!! We saw a bigger shark sleeping as well, love it! I thought I would be very scared, but as long as you let them be they won`t hurt you. We also saw turtles and cuttlefish which Adi irritated enough so it inked 😛 If you play with them they change in colors, but this one was just in a bad mood.

Day 3, third dive: This day I was almost sure they would cancel the dive. I had gone to the beach early to tan a bit, but after only an hour it started to pour down, and by pour I mean buckets. I was stuck in a cafè for more than two hours while it was thundering and the rain never seemed to want to stop. During a small window of no rain I ran back to the diveshop, just in time for a new shower. Luckily it stopped completely about half an hour before our dive. This time it was only Adi and me diving, and I managed to use my air so well that we were under for 60 min, and I still had plenty of air left when we got back up. We were at Bonte Wreck just off Gili Meno. It wasn`t a proper wreck, but a huge sunken platform of some sort. It was really beautiful though, lot of soft corals growing on it. As we were drifting along the wreck, Adi wanted us to swim through a whole and not over it. I was sure I would be able to just glide right through, but a smaaaaall miscalculation on how fare I actually was from the top and Adi had to pull me through so I wouldn`t damage the tank. He was laughing so hard he had to remove his regulator and just let some bubbles out 🙂  On this dive we saw several sharks again, boxfish, angelfish, a school of long finned batfish, triggerfish, Nemos (clownfish) and moray eels. And there are always tons of other tropical beautilful fish around, like swimming in an aquarium. If you take the time to google some of them you might get the kind of jealous I want you to be 😉

Day 4, fourth and fifth dive: I wanted as much experience as I could, so I had two dives on my last day. The first one we went to Meno Wall together with a sweet couple from Canada. This was by far the dive with the hardest current, and so we just drifted along the bottom. When you want to see cool small stuff you really have to push against the currents, and Ludo (my instructor in Thailand) told me never to wave around with my hands to try to control my buoyancy. Well. That was just impossible with this current, I was either sinking like a stone or floating like a piece of wood when I tried not to wave. In anyway, this was also a very good dive, more turtles, Nemos, batfish, angelfish (my favorite) scorpinfish, lionfish and stonefish.
On the fifth dive we went to Halik. Just me and Adi again, and we had one of the best dives I have ever had. In the shallows it was absolutely stunning, the reef was healthy and amazing and with so many cool things to see! We saw an octopus on the move, changing colors as he gracefully swam across the seabed, we met a cuttlefish in the mood for some games and it changed into so many different colors as Adi was teasing it, turtles (love love love turtles and never get tired of seeing them in the ocean), titan triggerfish, lionfish, and as the grand finale: A HUGE swimming moray eel! I have only seen them in caves before, holy cow it was so awesome to see it on the move 🙂

The next day I left Gili T, and I don`t think I have been this ready to leave a place on this trip. We just didn`t connect, and that`s just the way it is. I regret not going to Gili Air, but I will have to do that the next time I find myself in Indonesia 🙂

Next time: Nusa Lembongan.