Exploring and Snorkeling in the Gili Islands

On Friday, took a one-hour ride on a jukung, a traditional wooden Indonesian boat to the Gili Islands, a popular destination for divers and partiers and laid-back expats.

First stop was Gili Trawangan, the biggest and most lively of the islands, though COVID has turned Gili T, as the locals call it, into something resembling a ghost town.

Then we motored to Gili Air.  It was even emptier. However, I liked it much more than Gili T in that it is much more rustic in its commercialization and somehow it seems as though the place is carrying on in a fashion as it may have existed before tourist development started to take place in the 1980s.

Off the shallows of Gili Air, my guides took me snorkeling. No photos, I am afraid. I had enough of a challenge figuring out how to deal with my mask and snorkel and float suit and fins to worry about photography.  After I took to the water, I learned why my guides had been carrying a bottle filled with chunks of bread around with them in the boat.  No, it wasn't lunch, but it was bait to attract schools of beautiful tropical fish to feed in a frenzy around the quinquagenarian bobbing erratically along the ocean like an extremely oversized cork. The array of colorful fish was a stunning sight and I was also grateful that sharks are not similarly attracted to chunks of bread.

After my efforts at snorkeling we headed back to the hotel, but not before the most wondrous sight of the day:  several large sea turtles coming up for air about 30 meters from us. I failed to take my phone out of my bag to take pictures, but sometimes it is better to savor extraordinary sights than fussing around trying to capture them.