Day 5 – Oct 14

No mosque chants during the night I can remember, and morning was peacefully quiet with the now-usual roosters, goats, and birds, and the winds in the palms.

Today, the dive parties split up.  The 4 scuba divers were going farther offshore, which was not good for snorkeling.  The usual 10am departure time was moved up to the non-Ramadan holiday time departure of 9 am.  The diving parties were not informed of this and still expected a 10 am departure.  Fortunately, one of the dive operators named Rebeca found Kimiko and I just before 9 am, and we split up to quickly find the divers who were breakfasting nearby.  They just made it out at 9:15 am.

Kimiko and Kaori found a charter from a gentleman by the name of Putoo.  For $50 for the half day, his crew of 3 manned a glass bottomed boat for our use.  We departed at 9:30 am.  Putoo was skilled in using the sarong, or cloth, to keep the sun and water spray off his body.  He said please come back again to our islands and visit, valuing our tourism.  I made a note to myself that this native islander seemed to understand how the world works.  Sometime during the expedition, I was offered marijuana again by the crew which I politely declined.  I guess out here almost alone in the ocean off the Gili’s, there’s no police.

We snorkled off Gili Trawangan, then off Meno Wall to see turtles, and then went onto Gili Air where we found a dreamworld of aquatic landscape and life.  Gili Air seemed less traveled and the fish were very friendly – they would swim up to us to investigate – and Kimiko found a blowfish hovering off the bottom coral.  When I wiggled my finger, the fish seemed to be attracted and swarmed around me like a tornado.  I wish I had a camera as nobody would believe me, but Kimiko was there and saw it all.  The fish tornado then left me and swarmed around her.  I felt like a 6-year-old who made their first trip to an amusement park.  Unfortunately, we had to get back to a lunch appointment I had made previously on Gili Trawangan .  So we had to depart this treasure with only a 30 minute dive.  I told myself “I’ll be back” – this was worth flying 8,300 miles to see and experience.  On our short journey back, through some high waves and water splashes, I started to think how to come back here.  Kimiko and Kaori all felt the same as I, and we started brainstorming together.  We decided we had time enough in the morning for a final dive before the Mahi Mahi departed at 11 am for Bali.  This meant getting up at 5 am and packing  -  a small price to pay I thought.  I paid Putoo for the charter for the day, tipped him an extra $5, then asked if he’d go out tomorrow.  After he said he would, I then said early, 7 am and to only go to Gili Air, and he readily agreed.

We lunched to the Indonesian food, and were pleasantly surprised by the tasty vegetables in coconut milk curry sauce, the shrimps in a red sauce, and the spicy chicken.

In the evening, we had the usual gin and tonics off Alan/Tanya’s porch, and with just a few much less inspired mosque calls, then we all had fruit drinks then dinner at Scallywags.  A crazed wealthy renown “bad boy” white man from Jakarta came up to Kaori while she was alone and made an extremely overt pass, asking her out loud in front of everyone to “join him” (we won’t say the word’s used here) on his double-hulled yacht anchored offshore.  This was countered with a blunt rejection from Kaori.  I had my Indonesian lobster for dinner – sweet and tender.  Kimiko had a trout.  The others had steak which was fabulous tasting and a good meal to cap off the Gili Island’s part of our voyage.