Gili Air to Lembongan.
I looked around for a half hour to find an appropriate price to get off Gili Air. Some transport shops charge up to 600,000 rupiah and others are as low as 350,000 rupiah/ $35 USD. It’s worth looking around. I ended up at Marina kitty-corner to the pier boat ticket booth. After a quick goodbye to friends, acquaintances and staff I drifted off with a cup of tea in my hand. It wasn’t long before I was sitting on the express boat and speeding towards Bali. I was in Sanur by 1230 and in Jepun Bali Homestay by 1 o’clock. Not surprisingly a lot of the cheaper places, losmens, homestays and guest houses were full up but there are three on the alley I venture into every time I’m here and they haven’t failed me yet. For Indonesia, the tourist season has just begun. Jepun Bali Homestay is fortunately or unfortunately across from Starbucks, an easy location target for a taxi driver with limited English. I did have to pay up because the room I got was for a minimum of four people and yet the owner remembered me and dropped the price. She recognized me for bringing her guests last January when I was in the area. I paid about $25.00/night for a kitchen, living room, a king size bed, air-con and a flat screen. The kitchen had all the utensils necessary to walk down to the Hardy Grocery Store and actually make dinner for myself for the first time in oh a couple years, I can’t actually remember the last time.
I called Glory Express ferry service to pick me up the following morning at 10 am for the 11 o’clock ferry to Lembongan. I only have one last errand to run and I have to come back for it, I’m going diving. My van had an Aussie couple and a woman from Paris. We bought our tickets at the Glory headquarters and I told the French woman to get suitcase tags so they know where they go. She didn’t know where she was staying so I described Big Fish Secret Garden and she got tags. A few of the dive guides have changed but the chilled atmosphere remains.
After a dip in the pool I got to writing for a while on manuscript stuff and I am very excited about the three books I’m working on besides the trilogy of ‘Cale Dixon’ and a sequel to ‘White Bars’. A writer with A.D.D., that’s just - I’m going diving. I went down to Blue Corner restaurant just at sunset for some Tex-Mex and a cold one while watching the sky turn plum red and the music quietly eased in over the waves. The foreground was beanbags and bodies then the channel between Lembongan and Bali. The volcanoes made a brief appearance and faded into black.
I got up to my alarm at 6am so I could make tea and do some early morning fresh mind writing while this part of the world gradually came around. First dive site was Manta Point (Bay) and I now know why it’s called that. There were by loose count 25-30 Mantas milling about, mostly males groups following females. Some of the females are pregnant. There are still fewer in numbers than ever before so it would be really nice if the Chinese would stop eating their gills and throwing the bodies back in the sea, that would be cool. I guess it’s all about education and awareness and less about mystic traditions.
Our second dive was Crystal Bay where we had lunch followed by a ‘small stuff ‘ dive. The center is sand but the slopes are sprinkled with coral outcrops and again a swaying current. Outside the bay, in the strait, the current rushes by making waves and white wash. I took some fun shots in the colder water and the visibility was also better than at Manta Point. In between storm surges the water has a chance to clear but the next storm is near and I dive when I can see these days.
I teamed up with the French woman and we went off to The Deck for their ‘Sunset Sessions’ with DJ, Glynn Tandy from the UK. The music was chill and we watched the tailings of a sunset behind a cloud front. The music was relaxed and the place pretty much packed out all the seats along the cliff edge.
Lucky me we dove Manta Point (Bay) again followed by Crystal Bay again. I didn’t mind, the Mantas are awesome and crystal Bay has a lot to offer in the way of small stuff. At Manta we did spend some time looking around for a Bamboo Shark that hangs out on one side of the cove. No luck on that but again lots of Mantas and I was in the right place at the right time.
The trip out is a bit bumpy with a swell coming in and all the surfers are very excited. It does a bit of a job of your spinal compressions but hey when you’re hanging out with such fine people from Canada, Argentina, Belgium, France, Finland, the States, hey, it’s all good.
I took a motorbike ride with some folks around the island and crossed a suspension bridge to Cennigan Island for lunch. The views were almost all good until I saw the cost of paradise. That put a major damper on the experience that I feel should be noted.
The swell off of Jenny’s restaurant and hotel were beautiful and empty. Most of the surfers had gone over to Lembongan to surf because these were too difficult to get to. At low tide the seaweed farmers are out in force gathering and drying their product for sale. They have plotted the seabed and it’s time.
We went down to Secret Beach and couldn’t swim because it was seriously a washing machine exploding on the cliffs all around. All in all it was a good exploration. We found lots of places where a traveler could seriously disappear in small quaint guesthouses and just absorb the down time.
I do a bit of time at blue Corner Bar and Restaurant about a kilometer down the road from Big Fish because the Internet connection is much more consistent and stronger, oh yeah, they also have cold beer and good food over-looking the beach and waves. Blue Corner is another dive shop like big Fish, working together with others promoting Ocean Education, Research, and Conservation. There are quite a few that are on the conservation wagon because it’s important for everyone to be aware.
I’m half way through my time here in Lembongan and will end here to give you another opportunity to see more underwater photos and see some more things going on in this section of the world at present.
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