Jackamy - Gilli Aer

Gilli Aer

Jackamy

Paul & Derry Harper

Tue 26 Oct 2010 23:21

08:21.964S 116:04.874E

Wednesday 27th October

After 2 nights and 1 day of frustrating winds, numerous sail changes, motoring and sailing we arrived at Gilli Aer. A fantastic rural island that was settled by Sasak and Bugis farmers who planted lovely coconut groves that dominate the flat interior. There were originally 4 families then one more joined and that is still how it remains with just the 5 families living on the island. The tiny circular island is surrounded by a white sand beach, lapped with turquiose water and sprinkled with laid back beach bars an cafes. You can walk the island along the coastal sand path in an hour and the only form of transport is a horse and cart!

Fishing boats heading home..........Low lying Gilli Aer with the mountainous Lombok behind

Horse and cart................cart station

It was a beautiful little island with good cheap food, good bars, very friendly people and a good atmosphere. We could have stayed for a week or more had we not been on our schedule. There are times when we get the feeling that we're rushing through these countries. But then we're reminded, this is why we're doing the rally because if we were going solo and came across this little gem we'd never leave!

So, first things first, after our fiasco of trying to locate Crystal Rock we signed up for a dive with Oceans5, a new dive company with the prime position, right next to the jetty. For such a small island there were a few dive centres but this one looked the part and also came recommended because of the divers knowledge and numbers in a group. There's nothing worse than diving in huge numbers and with the currents we wanted to be in safe hands. All the dives we've done since being in Indonesia we'd done on our own, so we'd made sure it was slack water and had had little trouble with currents but with dive companies you dive at set times throughout the day, meaning there could be current and we wanted someone who knew what they were doing. The owner was incredibly welcoming and even offered the use of the pristine showers.

Carol, from Bali Blue, who has lived in Bali for many years had recommended shark point as she'd seen huge numbers of sharks. So we took her advice and signed up for this one. As it was just after the full moon we were also hoping to see large schools of bumphead parrotfish who appear to feast on coral spawns. We were not disappointed! When we first went down we weren't thinking good thoughts, the coral was dead and there wasn't much to see. But suddenly we came across 14 bumpheads grazing on the sea-bed. They were huge, I say about 1 metre long but Paul say's 2, I think that is an exaggeration though. You get the picture though! Anyhow, they were impressive and we watched them for a good 15 minutes. They seemed almost cartoon like as their greeny blue skin glistened and they're huge lips and teeth just seemed fake. Pictures to follow..... The rest of the dive was a bit dull with just one tiny reef shark and 2 octopus. But we were still elated when we surfaced after watching those fish.