Island Dreams

October 16, 2010

I have to write quickly which is a shame because I've had such a wonderful couple of days. But the internet is expensive on this island and I only have the cash on me for an hour.

I am now on a small island off of Bali called Nusa Lembogan. I came for what I heard was amazing diving and it is! I've done 4 dives in the last two days. I'd love to do more, but I've already stretched my budget. Of the various places I've gone diving Belize is the only one that rivals here. And there are supposed to be other amazing spots in Indonesia. I might treat myself to one more dive location. :) The coral reef just goes on and on and there are no gaps. The colors are spectacular and there is such an array of coral, sponges, fish and other sea life. The first dive was my favorite - maybe because it was my first here, but the sun was out and that helped with the colors. This dive area also felt like it was the NYC of the sea world. There was such energy and a crowd of fish and "buildings" (aka the coral). Many of the fish were darting and hurridly going from place to place. We saw eels, clown fish (Nemo!), lion fish, a sea turtle, parrotfish, triggerfish (including a beautiful one called a clown triggerfish), butterfly fish, groupers, a fish that looks like rust colored rocks, an octupus, and lots of the type of fish Gill was in Finding Nemo (yellow, black and white with a pointy mouth). After the dives I flipped through some reef books to identify a fraction of what I saw, but I don't have my log book with me to remember all the names. But I've never seen angelfish, triggerfish or parrotfish so big - about 1 1/2 feet long! There were lots of species within each of those groups. I saw every color that exists and many fish and corals looked electric.


One pair of clown fish was particularly protective of their anenome so they must have had eggs. They were coming right at us and not backing down. One even did a pretty hard tap on my BC - I think if he had gotten skin it would have hurt!


It just pained me to not have my diving camera case with me! Alas, one of my sacrfiices for the sake of less luggage.


The island itself is fun to explore. It only has bikes, motor bikes and trucks. I walked a couple of hours today and saw beautiful flora and the areas where locals live and work. A big business here is growing seaweed. I think it's for medicines rather than food, but you see the huge amount of labor that goes into it. Much more than if they could afford the conveniences of technology. The harbors have no docks, even in Sanur, so we had to wade to get in the boat (by climbing up between the engines). You can imagine how ridiculous I looked loaded down with all my things! On my walk today I met two young girls - 5 and 10. They started to follow me. The older one spoke a bit of English, but we had fun twirling and playing hand clapping games.


I'm out of time, but will write more soon. And hopefully I can share pictures in the next couple of days.