A dive at Jack Point shows the Gili Islands have lots to offer Advanced-level divers as well as beginners
THE GILI Islands off northwest Lombok are known for their friendly turtles and the colourful reefs on which many tourists take their first breaths underwater.
For Advanced divers and those wanting to improve, however, sites such as Jack Point, Deep Turbo and Mirko’s Reef offer rare creatures, stunning coral, a huge array of fish and some serious predators.
I’m ready for adventure and the staff at Gili Air Divers (a French / Spanish / Indonesian outfit that also is opening Gili Meno Divers) promise small diving groups, new rental equipment, personal service and an eagle-eyed guide, so I sign on for a morning at Jack Point, just off Gili Trawangan.
We gear-up, jump in, descend and it’s only moments before I find myself next to a hurricane of silvery-blue fish. Schools of barracuda, big eye jack fish, giant trevally, midnight snapper and banded sweetlips swirl and swoop.
Below us, blue-spotted stingrays weave through hundreds of tall whip corals, each reaching up like an arm from below. We are all pointing in different directions; there are just too many places to look.
It takes a bit of work to stay in this spot, fighting the current 27 meters below the surface. But the current is what brings the predators out to play. And when a white-tipped reef shark blows gracefully through the centre of the hurricane, I know it’s worth the extra kicks.
We rest our legs and go with the current, slowly moving up the slope that connects this dive location to Shark Point, a well-known site popular with divers at both Open Water and Advanced Open Water levels. In a patch of sand, a second shark rests with its gills open, inviting cleaner fish to visit.
Soon, we see some dark forms ahead – and they’re big at a meter long and almost as tall. Their tiny eyes pay us no attention as we draw close. They continue breaking apart coral, their ridiculous mouths and humped heads making them look like awkward teenagers.
Beautiful green scales help distinguish them as part of the parrotfish family. While most snorkelers have seen their relatively tiny cousins, the bumphead parrotfish is in a class of its own. For once, the camera-carrying divers are happy to include people in their photographs to show just how big these fish are.
Our guide gives us time to enjoy the bizarre animals before we continue up the slope, swimming over and around coral boomies surrounded by over-sized versions of sweetlips, angelfish and batfish. A moray eel snaps its jaw below a table coral while a banded snake eel goes out on the prowl.
Then, out in the blue behind us, a huge eagle ray floats by, moving so gracefully it seems its wings are in slow motion. For the first time, we all stop and stare in the same direction.
After seeing all these large animals, I have a hard time focusing when the guide points out something small on a purple sea fan. I get closer and after a few seconds it pops into focus. It’s a pygmy seahorse, no bigger than my fingernail. I squint and see its tiny cheeks moving.
Continuing the treasure hunt, a few minutes later we see a leaf fish on stag coral, using its arm-like pectoral fins to hold itself in place. This is special, as many people have made hundreds of dives throughout the world without seeing this unique creature.
To complete our eel sightings, a bright blue ribbon eel pokes its small head out of the sand. Later, we learned it is a young female which will turn yellow later in life.
The dive ends in an area full of pink coral five meters deep, where the famous green and hawkbill turtles both make appearances. They are searching for lunch in a much calmer hunt than the one we were to see further below.
After slowly surfacing, it’s clear our guide has three ecstatic divers on his hands. Two are already reliving memories of the predators. But for me, it was the bumphead parrotfish and pygmy seahorse that stole the show.
Gili Air Divers’ new boat picks us up and one of the crew asks if I’d like to go out again that same afternoon. My hammock-time plans have just changed, and I let him know, “Definitely.”
Source:enchanting-lomboksumbawa.com
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