Day 31 (Thursday 16th November 2006)

Well a month has passed has although we are missing everyone back home, we wouldn't want to be anywhere else in the world!

It couldn't have been a better morning to get up early for a spot of scuba diving, sadly though just like Marc in Phi Phi, Sarah was feeling a bit on the poorly side, so she sat this one out on the boat. It seems like one of us has always got to have something wrong with ourselves! No one could stop Marc this tme however and with his cool little Indonesian buddy Jamal, he flipped backwards off the boat and plunged in to his long-awaited dive.

It felt great for him to be back blowing bubbles having not dived now for nearly six years and amongst the highlights of this excellent dive was a rare and beautiful mandarinfish, scooter blenny (back in his fishtank again), filefish, nudibranchs, garden eels, two octopus, large juvenile batfish and for Bully's special prize...a gorgeous green turtle, who swam around them for a while before taking a big gulp of air and descending back down in to the abyss. It was an hour dive but Marc, very excitable and a little rusty, gulped his way through the tank, surfacing with just 10 bar left!

When we returned, Sarah was feeling a little better and by now she was itching to get in and see some stuff herself. So Marc,not yet dry from his dive, but never one to miss out on a snorkelling opportunity, accompanied her back down to the sea. As well as the usual stuff we saw a painted rock lobster and a large school of squid, before having great fun with a gigantic shoal of silversides...but no giant puffer and Sarah was not a happy bunny!

To mark a month without any home cooking, for lunch Marc had beans on toast and Sarah had a sausage sandwich, which we gratefully found on the dive shop's menu. For tea, Marc even gota whole restaurant's staff out the back, mashing up a big bowl of mashed potato for him...gotta' love him!

We watched an almighty storm hit Lombok in the afternoon, but somehow, no matter how much cloud lingers over the mainland, all the weather seems to miss these islands...what a place!!

Day 32 (Friday 17th November 2006)

We had booked another fun dive for this morning and at last Marc and Sarah got to buddy up under water for the very first time. Sarah was feeling better now, but not about the prospect of rolling back off a boat. She wouldn't accept our claims of it being the best part of the dive and instead, we floated her gear out to her on the water when we arrived at the dive site...bless her!

Our guide was Dedy, another cool Indonesian fella and he took us to Halik Reef, 20 minutes away off the third island Gili Trawangan. Marc had the underwater digital camera again and although we were meant to be buddies, Sarah spent most of her time floating up around the surface somewhere and Marc, no help at all, was scooting along the bottom snapping anything that moved. It was quite funny looking back, but we both really enjoyed the dive.

The dive site was a reef wall where we could maintain Sarah's maximum depth of 12m, but Marc could nip off down below, as he quite often did, to spot something interesting. The current was strong here and you could have easily classed it as a 'drift dive', which was no help given Sarah's bouyancy issues.

Dedy warned us in the brief that between coral heads were vast patches of dead coral, but that wasn't such a bad thing because it often attracted turtles who come in for a munch. Well he wasn't wrong...we saw no less than eight of the graceful reptiles, seven loggerheads and one beautiful hawksbill, snoozing by the reef. Unbelievable, eight and we got up close to them all. If you're thinking that cannot be topped, it can, and as we drifted past a fabulous giant puffer, lying low by the reef and having a very good clean from a whole workstation of cleaner wrasse, Sarah was in dillerium!! She got to see one, all be it as she shot by in the current, but she saw one nonetheless and was quite ecstatic.

Before ascending we saw some striking oriental sweetlips, magnificent angelfish, including emperors and regals, titan triggers, Sarah also seeing a clown trigger, groupers and Marc's first ever encounter with beautiful percular clownfish, or Nemo's if you'd prefer!It was a truly extraordinary dive and bar one or two distinctly dodgy ones, we took some great pics!

After lunch we were back inthe crystal clear waters again for a snorkel. The reef runs the whole way along the east coast of Gil Air, with a subtle current that drifts from left to right as you look at it. It is shallow, especially at low tide, and quite difficult to get in and out of. Once you get out a bit, the reef comes to life, before it drops off in to the deep about 100m out.

We decided it would be good to start at one end and let the current gently drift us to the other. We stayed by the edge of the reef, watching big things appear from the dark to our left and the bright and colourful world of the reef to our right...it would turn out to be one of the best snorkels ever!!

We saw a cute snow flake moray eel in his whole before we were waist-deep and from then on things just got better and better. Some more amazing razorfish bobbed by and Sarah was spotting puffer after puffer. Beautiful reef fish were all around us and then suddenly, appearing out of the dark below, Marc spotted a turtle. We were up to nine on the day's count and without his restricting scuba gear, he dived down a good 12m to say hello.

The turtle made no attempt to swim off and Marc, getting closer and closer, reached out his hand and gave the big fella a gentle stroke along his shell. For a brief second, the turtle slowly turned his long neck around and they both, according to Marc, whilst gazing into one anothers eyes, shared a real moment!!

From the surface however, Sarah would tell you a different story. She said that if Marc had stuck around just a little longer, the turtle was definitely going to bite his hand off!! Either way, whoever you believe, it was an experience we'll take to our graves!

By now we'd only drifted along a small section of the reef, there's just so much stuff down there that it's impossible to keep your eye on just one thing. That said, as Marc dived down to point out a striking yellow trumpetfish, he heard the muffled sound of Sarah screaming back at the surface. He turned around and there it was, number ten!

This one was huge and lazily made his way up to the surface for air. Marc swam up to greet him and, with his large, beautiful, scaley head (not Marc's, the turtle's) out of the water, once again Marc and turtle looked each other in the eye and had a moment!! Marc swam back down with his reptilian friend until his inferior air supply ran out.

Whilst all this was going on, Sarah had another eye on her second giant puffer of the day as it cruised back towards the depths and with the excitement getting too much to take, we headed for shore before we burst!

Marc was straight down the road for an underwater camera and before the day was up he took several snaps of nudibranchs, puffers and other fishy things.

Back at what is rapidly becoming something of our local restaurant, we had a lovely dinner before spending some more painful hours in a third world internet cafe!!

It's not every day in your life you see ten turtles in one day, let alone share the kind of moment Marc did with these magnificent creatures of the sea. It's going to be hard to top a day like today, but with over another 200 to go (sorry to remind you mums) we'll at least give it a go!

Love you all, hope things are good back home and we do hope you're not too jealous!!!!!!