Overnight flights go smoothly and the boat ride to the resort is so invigorating…I listen to tunes and enjoy the fresh air in my face the whole way:
We enjoy the welcoming cool towels, watermelon juice and the orientation. Then off to our “bunk”, which is 6th from the left on the “feature photo” on this post.
Daily visits to the bar/lounge (only spot for poor wi-fi):
And down the jetty by 7:45 to suit up for the daily dive:
We have a stellar dive-master for the week: Yulens
We have our own little dive group with another couple from Switzerland, who arrived on the same boat as us. We quickly fall into a joyous routine: morning breakfast (always pancakes for me; can’t have burpy stomach 60 feet under), head down the jetty for a morning dive, surface interval (hour between dives) either back at the resort, on the boat, or on a beautiful village dock somewhere:
or a beach, playing with a fruit that is not edible but when opened, comes apart to create a naturally-occurring puzzle that Yulens and I (mostly he) put together:
There is no way to convey the sight of abundant fish, multi-colored hard and soft corals and the expanse of healthy reef life that we enjoyed 40 – 82 feet under. Sharks, butterflies (who mate for life), parrot fish, bump-head parrot and napoleon wrasse (big motherfuckers), moray eels, lion-fish, coral-banded shrimp, one yellow frog-fish (my favorite), turtles and so much more. Two night dives yielded the indigenous walking shark, 3 seahorses, a large reef octopus and a 3 inch blue-spotted octopus. A muck dive plus my handy magnifying glass allowed me to see a yellow skeleton shrimp, pygmy shrimp and a couple other tiny creatures (oh, porcelain crab) that I can’t rightly remember anymore. But you get an idea of the experience.
Back to rinse gear, take a shower, hoover up the lunch buffet (daily pasta, Tatey!) and then a strenuous afternoon that always includes this:
There’s a path through the beautiful jungle that leads to the second jetty on the back side of the island, which we enjoy on more than one occasion. The trees here and all over are incredible:
The lovely spa was at the very end of the “bunkline” and I had my first ever 4-hands massage. Along with that experience, there were herbs boiled in oil and wrapped in a muslin bag that was then rubbed all over my body (ouch, that’s hot!) along with the oil itself being poured all over. Yummy! and as always, the traditional Balinese foot washing first (all the spa women were from Bali and loved that I wore my Balinese woven cloth to my treatment):
Our hut is so wonderful. Sliding wooden doors off the back so we can lie in bed an look out at the sea and listen to the surf. I don’t think I’ve ever spent so much time naked as I did in the afternoons on the back deck and wandering around the hut. Not even at suwarrow, though it was so wonderful I’m going to head in that direction. So beware! I will leave you with the magic light of sunset that filled the sky nightly for only about 10 minutes after the sun went down:
