They took us to some place to rent gear, and I didn't even think to check it for like holes or anything, but when we got into the water, I kept getting a snorkelful of water every few seconds. As it turned out, there was a tear in the connector and so water was just flooding in. BOOO-urns. But luckily the helmsman had his snorkel hanging around he was staying in the boat, so I borrowed his. What a waste of like four dollars.
Anyway, we didn't have an underwater camera, so I can't show you all the AMAZING shit we saw under the water. But my mom took a bunch of pictures above water, so here they are, chronologically. A lot of them are pretty samey and self-explanatory, so I won't say much about them in particular.
Captain. I heard my mom ask his name at one point, but the answer was so long, I was like fuckin even AYE couldn't be expected to remember than, and I'm used to foreign names.
Helmsman. I didn't get his name, but he was a nice guy, even though he has no face here.
Lookit the water, man.
During this trip we went to I think three different snorkel sites around the three Gili Islands. The first couple of sites were where sea turtles hang out, and we saw a couple at each place. That was cool. Actually, the best part of the snorkeling trip was this moment when we found a turtle just a few meters below us. Now, the water kind of changed its quality depending on where we were. In some places it was such a dark blue that you couldn't really see more than a few feet below you, but you could still see pretty far laterally. But in other spots, it was so light and clear that you could see like a hundred feet down to the bottom. In this area, though, it was like being in a bucket of dark blue. I couldn't hardly see anything. All I could see was this giant sea turtle, literally in a sea of blue, right below me. It was very peaceful. The boat captain swam down and touched it, but when I tried to do that my eardrums felt like they were going to explode. All morning I couldn't swim down more than a few feet. I tried swallowing, but it didn't work. So I didn't get to touch the sea turtle, but that's okay. I recently heard you're not supposed to touch them anyway.
In addition to sea turtles, there were these really cool little electric blue fish, which I liked enough to remember. I don't really remember any other fish from the first two sites. There weren't many. I did keep getting stung by tiny jellyfish, though. It was like a bunch of bee stings. I finally was able to see them in the water, and they were like electric pink or blue, as I recall. Smaller than a pea, the bastards.
By the way, it was a glass-bottom boat tour, so here is the glass bottom. You don't really see a helluva lot looking through there, but actually we did catch a glimpse of a sea turtle or two, and some fish of course.
At the last stop, we kind of stopped nearish the shore, after getting the boatspider legs caught with the legs of another boat, huhrrr, but then we were okay, so I jumped out because it was wicked hot. But then the boat had to kind of turn around and move a bit, so I had to hold on for dear life so it wouldn't leave me somewhere. When I started, I was holding on to the front of the boat, but the leg is all slimy, so I slipped on down to the back. Ha.
The third site was for fish proper, and in order to attract them, the captain put a bunch of breadlings into a water bottle and put some water in there. Then we went in the water, and he'd dump out some pieces and give us each a handful, and the fish would come and eat out of our hands. Sometimes they would eat our hands, too, but it didn't hurt. My favorite fish were these bright purple technicolor ones. I think there were also like some yellow fish, and definitely a lot of uglyass brown fish, but also the blue ones I liked again, and some others. It was interesting. The captain left the water bottle in the ocean, though, which I wasn't too pleased about.
One time, I've heard tell, my sister told my mom, "I'm sorry I'm not your GOLDEN BOY, Ryan" and ever since then he's been called the Golden Boy. So we took this picture for him.
After snorkeling, we were taken to this beachstaurant for lunch.
I got this banana cappuccino shake. It was awesome.
While we were eating, several people came up to us to sell shit. We might have been more willing, except we didn't expect to need money for more than gear, water, and lunch, so we only had the equivalent of a few dollars with us. Mom did end up getting a wooden mask for a good deal, because it was kind of a take it or leave it thing, only having a little money as she did. Then once she bought that, the vultures set in, and weren't really believing us that truly, we had no money. So some guy ended up getting her to trade some little keychain or something, plus a handful of small change for a pair of Fashion Earrings--plastic pearls that matched the real pearl necklace I got her in Shanghai. We both know she got taken, especially since one of the damn things came apart the next day, but she found the experience of trade interesting, so I guess it was worth it.
Small toes only.
It's fun sitting in these beach huts. Maybe I'll get one when I buy a beach house someday.
This is some sort of offering to Dionysus, or some local equivalent. It's a lot of empty alcohol bottles and junk.
Returning back to Gili T, we had to be dropped off at the main harbor, rather than at the beach in front of our hotel (where we were picked up), because of the tide situation at that moment. That was fine, except that we were expected to bring back our own rented gear, and we couldn't remember where the hell we'd gotten it, because we didn't get there by land, but boated over to the place, not even necessarily realizing we were on the same island when we went back on land (because we were focused on the water and looking the other way and such). So I asked the captain where we should go to return this stuff, and he pointed in the direction of our hotel. I think he must have misunderstood, because we didn't see the place on the way back. So we said, well, fuck it. They probably don't expect the gear until five, and it's only like two now, so let's go swimming first at the pool, then try and walk back to find the place.
So we left the gear out on the balcony of our room, so as not to mess up the room itself. But when we got back, it was gone. I called the front desk to see if maybe housekeeping had picked it up thinking it belonged to the hotel and we should return it (which would have been pretty shitty if in fact we had rented it from the hotel). But the dude at the desk told me that the owner of the gear had come looking for it, and security brought him to our room to pick it up. As if. It's a small world around there, so it's no surprise that he knew where we were staying. But our question was, did he think we were trying to steal it? We never found out, but I hope not. Also because that happened, I wasn't able to tell the dude that the snorkel was useless. But whatever, man.
In any case, it was a fun little trip.
The End.
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