In Padangbai we hired a local fisherman for the hour boat ride to the small island of Nusa Lembongan. I had no idea how great this boat ride would be. Not only did he let me drive the boat but he gave me his rice hat to wear while I did and I was in heaven!
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| Dream Beach |
We arrived along the crystal clear waters of the island in the morning and quickly found our room and hired a scooter for the next three days at a bargain price of 160,000 Rp which is about $14 Cdn. I admit I was terrified of driving the scooter especially with a passenger on the back but I figured it was time to face my fear. This was a great place to practice driving as there are only a few work trucks on the island but no other cars. The streets were barely bigger than a sidewalk and there would be times you wouldn't see anyone else on the road.
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| Mushroom Bay |
We drove around for awhile, following our map of this small island, and ended up at Dream Beach. The water was an incredible color, the sand was white, and the waves came crashing in. We went for a good ride in the strong waves and enjoyed the scenery. Close to Dream Beach is a path that leads to Devil's Tear. The water comes crashing into the rocks and creates a natural water plume. I don't think nature has ever amazed me as much as this place did. The strength of the ocean is unbelievable.
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| The Magroves we had to snorkel through |
The next day we drove to Mushroom Bay. I was nursing a horrible sunburn from snorkeling without sunscreen in Padangbai so we stayed out of the sun for the most part. We heard you could snorkel from shore here and we tried but found the current to be quite strong and there were too many boats to not worry about having our limbs torn off by a motor.
We later headed to the mangroves. People had been trying to sell us snorkeling trips here but we made the decision to be cheap and try it ourselves. What a journey that was! We swam through mangroves, sticks, mud, seaweed farms, and dogged multiple water snakes, but we finally made it to the coral and it was so worth it! The fish were incredible, the coral was beautiful and best of all it was free. The only issue was that we had to go back through all of that to get to shore.
The next day we hired a local fisherman again and got a good deal on a snorkeling trip to The Wall and Crystal Bay. Crystal Bay was full of beautiful, healthy, colorful coral. It was the first time we got to feel like Little Mermaid which we quite enjoyed. When we snorkeled the wall we followed the current along the coral but after seeing how healthy Crystal Bay was we weren't as impressed, but that may have also been because we both were stung by jelly fish. The current is strong and you couldn't see them coming so when I cleared my mask I got stung on the face and Rachel was stung twice on her hip and back.
We thought the snorkel trip was over and we were both a little cold but the fisherman had something else in mind. Little did I know how fantastic the day was about to become. He stopped at a spot and asked me if I wanted to snorkel again as he was going to snorkel. Rachel decided to stay in the boat and I took my GoPro along for some more video. Ends up that the guy was spear fishing. I saw the first fish he caught and he was such a great sport about it. He came right up to the camera with me and we took a selfie with the fish. He continued fishing and I wasn't quite sure what I was supposed to do so I took a chance and swam after him. He handed me the next fish and told me to hold on and swim it back to the boat. This continued on until we had caught a few fish. There aren't even words to explain how amazing this was for me. I still shake my head in awe of that day. We decided to hire him again the next day for our trip back to Padangbai for our ferry to Lombok. For a little island there was a lot to offer and a lot to enjoy. This was before Gili. Before things changed for us. Before we knew what we were really getting into.
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Mushroom Bay
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| Cheap Scooters for Rent |
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| Devil's Tear |
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| Some of the coral at Crystal Bay |
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| Catch of the Day! |
