Scuba Diving in Gili Air Indonesia... TURTLE ALERT
TURTLE TURTLE
"Am I not turtley enough for the turtle club?"
(bonus points if you got that reference)
The Gili islands recently got hit with a massive earthquake, however that did not stop me on my mission to visit the 'turtle heaven' that is the Gili's!
Most people visit the Gili islands to do one of three things...
Party
Soak up the sun
Scuba dive.
Naturally I managed to do all three pretty well.. will not comment on which one I did the best...
Who to dive with?
I spent most of my time on Gili Air, where plenty of dive shops litter the dusty roads of the island. There are some big operations here as it is a popular place to not only dive, but get open water certified!
I have learned to pick my dive shops wisely.
The last thing you want is to get stuck on a boat with a dive group of way too many people, especially if they are beginners! It hinders your experience, I am underwater to see a bunch of fish not a bunch of other humans floating around.
Pro tip: Always ask how many people per dive master/instructor there will be. I prefer no more than 4.
I popped into a few of the different dive shops and was SO happy to find Gili Pilith Fun Divers. The owner, Rob, has a ton of experience diving in South East Asia and chose Gili Air as the location for his dive shop. A smaller operation than it's competitors, Rob is adamant about his customers having a more customized experience... AKA awesome.
His objective was to create a customer centric, fun divers only experience, giving you more flexibility about where and when you dive. This means no courses available (so your fun dives will never be structured around where the Open water students need to go), and small groups.
I immediately vibed with the shop and was sold!
My two main goals for the day of diving.. turtles and sharks
The experience of swimming with seas turtles is just so... MAGICAL.
We headed to a dive site called Turtle Heaven (stellar dive site name) in hopes of spotting these adorable creatures.
GOAL ACHIEVED!!
Some of them were MASSIVE...
One tried to even get a little close and personal with me...
Stare off...
I mean just look at that face...
Turtle Heaven was a brilliant success and now my next mission... find a shark! Something I had NEVER seen before.
So next up we headed to the dive site Shark Point...
Where I got to come face to face with my very first shark!!!
OK so he looks a little small in this photo... but I swear he is larger in person and his sharky ways and beady eyes even instilled a little fear in me as he would swim by me! Don't worry though.. they are not gonna jaws you, it's fine!
A great experience
I had such a blast diving in the Gili's and definitely recommend Gili Pilith Fun Divers! Our dive master Jae was professional, fun, and did an excellent job of spotting out all of the marine life along the way.
P.s. made a pit stop in-between dives to these semi creepy sunken statues...
This was just the beginning of my diving journey in Indonesia. Next up is Komodo National Park and I cannot wait to share it with you!
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