Turtles and Shark bites!
We had decided to go to the final Island, Gili Meno as a day
trip rather than stay there which turned out to be a good idea as it seems the
smaller the island, the more expensive things are. So after another breakfast
of Fruit/Muesli and nice coffee we headed for the port once again.
Again we caught the local boat and it was another quick
journey to get to Gili Meno, but once there you are then met by a pontoon boat
that come to meet the boat where you transfer onto it to take you into shore.
Once on shore you could see why this Island is considered
the Chill island as there were very few bars restaurants and a lot more
exclusive looking accommodation but with the odd eco/traveller resort thrown in
too. Also from what I can remember there
was not transport at all.
The day before we had decided that we would not do a
snorkelling trip to try and see turtles as we had been told there was a
breeding ground in the North-West corner of Gili Meno where you stood a good
chance of spotting Turtles so we thought we would try and do this ourselves.
We walked to where we thought the spot was, judging by a
number of snorkelling boats out around 400 metres away, then we donned our
snorkel gear and headed into the sea.
It was quite a way out and first we passed over sea grass
where we only saw the odd fish and then out across a patch of dead coral where
there was also not much to see. Not
deterred we carried out to sea where we eventually got to an area that had lots
of live coral and the usual suspects of tropical fish knocking around – but no
turtles!
We snorkelled around this part for a while before heading a
bit further out to where the coral area stopped and a bit drop-off
started. I must admit I do not like
drop-off’s (Glenn not Shell - I envisage large sharks coming from nowhere out
of the depths – and there are proper sharks around here!!) so we swam along the
edge of the drop-off for a while hoping that we would see a turtle in the
deeper water, but we didn’t.
After quite a while and me seeing how far it was back to
shore (I’m no Duncan Goodhew!!) I signalled to Shell that I wanted to go
back. On the way back we were just about
back and passing over the sea grass area when I spotted a large rock that then
started moving!! We had found a turtle
that was feeding on the grass and after grabbing Shell’s attention we were able
to get fairly close to it before it started swimming off and then we spotted a
couple more all of them being quite large (Size of a large coffee table) Hawksbill
Turtles.
We followed them for a bit but I think they got fed up with
us and powered off and we could not keep up without fins on. So we headed back to the shore again and then
came across another turtle, this one was a little less shy and allowed us to swim
with her (Shell decided it was a girl!) for some time before we got back to the
drop-off and she disappeared into the blue depths.
That was the last turtle we saw before finally getting back
to shore. Being ever so chuffed that we
had managed to see and swim with turtles in the wild we then sat at a nearby
beach bars and had a couple of beers to celebrate (yes, I Know, we don’t need a
reason!).
Once we had finished celebrating we headed of for a walk
around this island as we were only there for the day. Again it was very beautiful, but you also had
the odd bar that was actually advertising Magic Mushrooms (Maybe this is why
they call it the chill-out island).
About ¾ of the way round we had to stop for a beer as it was
blisteringly hot and whilst we had stopped we got a soup and some noodles for
lunch, after which we carried on and completed the circuit of the island.
At the port area we purchased a ticket to get back to Gili
Air but we had to wait for an hour and a bit so we headed back to the turtle point
to try and spot some more. We just
scoured the sea grass areas but the tide had gone out slightly which made it
shallower and there were no turtles to be seen so after 20 minutes we gave up
and returned to the port to catch our boat.
Back in Gili Air we headed back towards our accommodation
with the intention of finding a bar away from the beach which might be cheaper,
however we could not find a bar so ended up in a restaurant named Shark
Bites. So we got a cold beer here and
then finding the Norwegian owner had a liking for playing acoustic rock music
which we appreciated we stayed and had a few more beers there and then noticing
the food looked pretty good, ended up having an early dinner there too.
The food was really good, but not as good as their toilet
which had loads of Surreal Shark cartoons/jokes all over it, which had me
giggling in the stall for about ten minutes, it could also be to do with the
beers too!! But I told Shell to go and
visit to and she came back also laughing with a camera load of these cartoons!
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