Snorks

After the shenanigans with our Liberty Wreck dive, zombie Chuck and I just chilled the remainder of the day on the beach in Amed so her face could deflate, then, the following day, we made our way to Gili Air.  Once we landed on the island, we hopped the only method of transportation (besides feet), the cidomo/horse cart:

 

They are so jingly and decked out with pom-poms, fringe and tassels!  And bumpy.

We dropped our bags off and immediately jumped in the water for some excellent snorkeling... right off the bat we saw this massive puffer bopping around:

At one point we were swimming around, watching schools of tiny fish dart all around us, when we turned around to see this dude feeding the fish some sort of chum-like substance out of a water bottle... they went crazy for it and surrounded us:

I caught sight of these cool juvenile teira batfish... Tim and I saw them (or some just like them) last time we were on Gili Air, but we didn't have the camera to document them:

Chuck tries to attract parrotfish to her with sparkle fingers:

 

More snorkeling footage... highlights include: some bee-you-tee-full coral, some super-duper-shaky footage of a cool black and white eel (Chuck's first time at the wheel) at 0:38, a trumpetfish at 1:18:

 

Zombie Chuck loves snorkeling:

Snorkel selfie:

Check out this fish fight club I witnessed... not exactly sure what these grappling fish are but they kinda looked like mini (2 inch long) scorpion fish... the camera work is a little shaky because the waves were rocking me back and forth.  Sorry.:

Gili Air's BioRock, a reef restoration program... see photos of its installation here and read more about it here:

After snorkeling we retreated to the comfort of the Chill Out's lounging area:

Lovely.

Amed Amusements

The final stop on Martha's whirlwind Indonesian trip was Amed, my favorite beaching/snorkeling/chilling spot on east Bali.  I love the mountains sitting right next to the sea in the Amed area... it makes for some pretty beautiful scenery:

 

The mountain and sea views from our hotel room at Baliku ("my Bali")... please note the frequent rooster and pig noises:

Jukung fishing boats all lined up along the black sand beach:

I just liked these vintage-looking matches:

Baliku's delicious bubur hitam (black rice pudding, topped with coconut milk and palm sugar syrup)... the rest of the food at Baliku was pretty awesome, too.  Particularly their beef rendang, which is served fusion style with pita and cucumber yogurt sauce- awwwwwwesome.

While in Amed I was actually successful in getting Martha to snorkel!!  Score!  We had tried in the past with little success, but I was determined for her to see the beautiful coral and fish just under the surface in the Amed area.  Turns out the key is: rent a life vest!!

We saw a ton of stuff, too (although I forgot my underwater camera... doh!).  Right in front of our hotel, we saw some sweet coral as well as the coral-covered Japanese wreck.  Then we spent some time at nearby Lipah beach (having hopped motorbike taxis to get there- exciting!), where there was more lovely coral and lots of fish, including Moorish idols, titan triggerfish (which we saw picking up and transporting bits of coral), trumpetfish, giant clams, a Spanish dancer nudibranch eggs, and approximately a zillion other fish.

Lipah beach is pretty awesome- rent a chair and umbrella for the day, snorkel and swim, listen to the gamelan being played behind you:

We also did a sunset cruise on the junkung (like Tim and I did for my birthday last year), which was lovely:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We also saw some amazing sunsets from our hotel's balcony area... the perfect happy hour drink spot:

 

From our balcony we could also see the top of Lombok's Mt. Rinjani looking imposing in the distance. Check out Colleen and Steve's insane photos from the top of Rinjani!

And lots and lots of jukung fishing boats, out quite early in the morning (this is them coming back in at 7 am) with their beautifully colored sails:

Miss you, Amed!

Snorkeling Amed

It's hard to tell from the surface, but there is some amazing snorkeling in Amed, Bali.  I wish Tim and I decided to give ourselves our Christmas present early so I would have it to document this snorkeling outing, but such is life.  You'll have to trust us that we saw some seriously cool shit.

Jenny and Tim, snorkeling past each other like ships in the night:

The stuff out there was pretty awesome: brightly colored giant clams and Christmas tree worms, trumpet fish, angelfish, table coral, brain coral, beautiful pink, ribbony Spanish Dancer eggs (dudes, check out the Spanish Dancer in action here)...

The craziest thing we saw, however, was some nature in action in the most disturbing way.  At one point I caught sight of a blue-spotted stringray and gestured for Eileen to come over to check it out.  As we were marveling at it, we noticed that its tail was missing, replaced by a fleshy wound.  At the same time as we noticed, all the fish in the vicinity noticed, too, and they immediately took advantage of the ray's weakness.  They ganged up on him, biting at his wound aggressively and repeatedly.  Finally, one of the larger fish got a hold on the stingray and dragged him under a piece of coral as the ray struggled and struggled, but the gang of fish was too much for him.  Eileen and I just stared (our mouths would have been agape if they hadn't been holding our snorkels in place), totally disturbed and yet not really wanting to intervene, knowing the ray's demise was inevitable. Nature is a bitch, folks.

And finally, jukung fishing boats in action (and inaction), similar to the one in which Tim and I took a cruise to see the sunset over Mt. Agung:

Pulau Sepa Shenanigans

Tim decided to take scuba diving lessons here in Jakarta since we find ourselves in the midst of some of the best dive sites in the world.  He took classes three nights per week for the past two weeks at Bubbles Dive Center (which has a seven-meter deep mini-pool in the middle of Jakarta).  To cap off his training and complete the four open water dives required for certification, he was scheduled for a weekend in Pulau Seribu (Thousand Islands), a group of not-quite-thousands-but-still-a-lot of islands not too far from Jakarta.  Ben, Erin and I decided to join him (me after a quick scuba refresher course, also at Bubbles).

Ben and Erin making their way onto Palau Sepa.

Tim and Bubbles Dive Master Yewan walking the pier.

Front desk at the resort.

After a jarring one and a half hour boat ride north from Jakarta's port, we arrived at Pulau Sepa, a sunny little island with some cabins, a dive center and a main eating area/bandstand.  Kinda like the setting for Dirty Dancing, but in the middle of Indonesia and with more giant lizards and bad (laughably terrible) cover songs sung by a live band during meals.

Our cabin. 

Island views.

 Ben, Erin and I almost immediately took off on our first of four dives, right off the pier, while Tim practiced some skills with his "buddy" on a separate dive.  We saw a blue spotted stingray, a flounder, a variety of cool corals, some nudibranches (which are apparently all the rage in this area),  a zillion sea urchins, some clownfish (aka the Nemo fish) and anenome, along with lots and lots of little fishies that I can't immediately identify.

Our second dive was off the boat, at a reef just off nearby Pulau Matahari (Sun Island), which housed a bankrupt/abandoned resort not dissimilar from the one where we stayed.  Or as Ben called it, a Scooby Doo island.  Lots of cool purple anenome and coral on this dive.

Sittin' on the dock of the bay.

After our dives, we grabbed some beers and sat on a pier to watch the sunset.  This quickly devolved into a front flip/back flip contest for Mr. Ben and Mr. Tim, as evidenced below:

Cool clouds. Thousands of tiny islands.

Storm in the distance.

After the sun set, we did some night snorkeling off the dock, searching for seahorses and crabs, but mostly finding fluorescent coral and a couple crabs.  Night snorkeling is very trippy... dark and mysterious.

Eh?  What's that there?

I wish we hadn't had that 4th beer before snorkeling... Snorkel? More like horkel!

The next day was much sunnier.  We headed out early for dives three and four while Tim completed his skills testing.  During dive three, at Tongkeng, we saw about 6 starfish right off the bat... electric blue, blue spotted, and near the end of the dive, a giant crown of thorns starfish (spikey, blue, a zillion legs).  Dive four was a relaxing jaunt off the pier back at Sepa, but we also got to tool around under the pier a little bit, which was cool, as the reef was basically taking over the pier's pillars under water- they were covered in coral and clams.

Sunny day for a dive!

Cool clouds.

Our pier and dive jump-off point.

Please excuse the post-dive mask marks and the giant mosquito bite on my forehead (although forehead bugbites seem to be my M.O. on tropical trips [see Costa Rica, October 2010]).