Diving in the Gilis

 The feeling of total freedom and serenity when you're under water is heaven for me, and I simply can not get enough of it. That's why I knew that the Gilis were a must for my recent visit to Indonesia. I had heard of the tiny island of Gili Trawangan by a buddy who'd lived there for 6 weeks, working as a dive master. She had firsthand experience of the brilliant diving in this region and that I only needed to speak with her for five minutes before I was convinced.

As I was going along with my sister and another friend, both of whom had not dived before, she recommended that people went to Big Bubble Dive as the groups are small, and the instructors are friendly. The Gilis would be the ideal place to learn how to dive. The atmosphere is pleasant and relaxed, with a great deal of divers of various levels of experience. You are also sure to observe a huge variety of fish on every dive, and lots of the dive sites are shallow enough for training dives.

You can reach all of the websites by Jukung boats and the travel period is no more than about 25 minutes. This usually means that you don't need to spend half of your time travelling to get to the dive site! This is a huge plus point for me since I have a tendency to get a bit sea sick, particularly after a dip, due to the salt water intrusion of my nose.

I did a total of 8 dives, and every one was totally fantastic. I saw plenty of amazing things such as cuttlefish, octopus, black tip reef sharks, boxfish (my personal favorite ), pufferfish and turtles, to name but a few.

In my last dive, I had been due to buddy up with my recently qualified sister. But, among those Dive Masters suggested that I go with another group to do a more experienced drift dive as it was, in his view, the best dive site in the area. This is the most spectacular dive I have ever done. I was fortunate enough to spot a gorgeous, 2 metre extended bumphead parrot fish. This fish has been incredibly incredible to observe, polished deep green in crystal clear waters. This dip was the highlight of my entire trip.

 

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