Friday 13 March – off to Gili Air

Rowan and Grant started fiddling with the fuel filters after breakfast. Something wouldn’t budge and Rowan did not want to force it, which is not really like Rowan to be so cautious. Rowan wanted to go and find the mechanic so the rest of us opted for a walk. We went as far as we could along the beach, passing endless colourful boats with their bamboo outriggers. We turned in land when we could go no further and arrived at a road leading to a couple of resorts. We chose the resort that was further along the beach where we had been walking as it had a view looking back to where PolePole was moored. Turned out to be a very posh, modern built resort owned by Belgians. It had the sweetest staff, was painfully empty and had the most precisely manicured garden. The small beach looked like it had been raked a number of times already this morning. We had some delicious fruit juice cocktails and enjoyed the ambience, more suited to Italy than here! They had a nice big jetty so we asked Rowan to pick us up from there, it was a little more challenging than we expected with quite a wave to contend with.

Rowan had great news he found the mechanic who gave him some advice on how to get the offending pipe off to allow the new filter to be fitted. Fingers crossed this solves the problem. Rowan was keen to move on, we picked up the anchor and went a couple of miles across to Gili Air. One of three little islands just off the coast. We heard from the boat Sea Angel they were coming to join us. Aaron and Daiana have been exploring Lombok with her Brazilian niece and boyfriend.

We went for a snorkel along the reef between us and the beach, the visibility was not great, we drifted down the coast to where the snorkelling boats were out which had some better coral and a few fish, which would have looked a lot better in clearer water. It was a wonderful cool down before heading back to the boat. We dinghied to the beach when it had cooled down a bit more, around 4pm. We had arranged to meet Sea Angel’s crowd at a beach on the other side of the island so we could enjoy the sunset. It is a small island, we had a wonderful thirty minute walk along the main path around the island. The island has a very chilled atmosphere, with a variety of places to stay from smart to backpacker style accommodation, with more restaurants than we have seen in a long time, the path was lined with places to eat. It is such low season the place felt very empty but imagine it is heaving during peak season. We met up for our sunset drinks which was fun to catch up on sea Angel’s news. We had a little chortle as they had told us they were a bit frustrated as the niece had wanted Aaron and Daiana to sail and meet them in Thailand, which would have been a manic dash, Daiana suggested Bali as they were unlikely to be able to get to Thailand in time. The response was the kiwi boyfriend had been to Bali before and would rather go to Thailand! Anyhow they all seemed to be having a very jolly time.

We all went our separate ways for supper. We walked to the other end of the island, Rowan had found a little restaurant serving Indo food with great reviews. We arrived and there was one couple in the small restaurant which is in the middle of the island, not next to the sea. It easily turned out to be the best meal we have had in Indo, we all raved about our dishes. Being good Muslims they didn’t serve alcohol but had delicious juice drinks. It all came to less than £5 a head, drinks, starters and main course. We were blown away by the meal, served by such lovely humble people. It explained why by the time we left the restaurant it was nearly full, the endless restaurants we passed on our way back to the dinghy had no customers at all. It was good to have a walk to work off our dinner. We did take a few dead ends which made it a little longer walk. We thoroughly enjoyed our time on the island, a fun place to be, tomorrow we are heading south to the Southern Gilis.