Snorkeling in the Gilis

Finally kicked whatever viruses were rattling around me out, or at least mostly out of my body. The victory celebration involved booking a snorkeling excursion in a glass bottomed boat. I thought that a glass bottomed boat was superfluous given how clear and beautiful the water already was, but I had no idea how cool it would be to see the shallow, crazy colored water through a giant window:

The list of promised animal sightings did not disappoint. The most majestic being the sea turtles. I followed one that was as large as the hood of my Honda Accord for a bit. The patterns on it shell were repeated on its head- the rectangles and trapezoids of armor.

Still no Nemo sightings (i.e. clownfish), but all kinds of tropical fish (sorry no underwater camera to bring this all to life…)

The 3 Gili islands are flat, with a dry climate. Lombok, looming just a few miles away looks very different, the mountains seem to trap more clouds & condensation. When I first glanced at this view I thought it was snow accumulated at the peak!

I was to find out from friends who visited Lombok after this trip that the climate and landscape is more like northern California, minus the kajillion people.

Below is a shot of my favorite, well, the only pirate boat around the Gilis. It's either a pirate boat or the creepy boat in the movie "Dead Calm."
To test the limits of just how healthy we were, we took the long way around the island on our bikes to get home. Even though my bike had a nifty rat trap, it did not have nifty clean gears or fat tires. So I ended up pushing the bike through plenty sandy spots. The ocean views did not vary much from our home hotel, but the path at times was charming: