17 February 21:21

We felt so well-rested when we woke up this morning. Slept in until 8 (after 10h of sleep), had a slow breakfast and packed for the day. We were going on an adventure!

On the most beautiful day so far.

And on the most sweaty day so far.

I don’t know if it was the new reef friendly sunscreen we bought, but wow, we both were dripping with sweat after slowly strolling along the sandy roads. We reached the end of “our” beach, where we live and then we had to dive in. It was refreshing, but probably because it was 30 degrees. Bounty Beach, the beach in the south, is just one long beach and the main beach of the island. There are so many dive centers along this road, which is just sand lined with a small stonewall basically. At least on Gili Trawangan, the road was laid with stones. This is just sand. When we reached a third of the island we turned west and walked through the local areas. Wow. I don’t know if it made me appreciate my 82sqm big apartment full of stuff, but this was definitely something else. Just below the row of dive centers and small resorts, there truly lives the locals. So very friendly, kids saying hello, asking for our names and what we are doing and so on. So many kids running around playing.

Theser are all along Bounty Beach, the beach in the south:

After buying some water, we thought we should go up north, but with our Birkenstocks, and the extreme heat, we only reached halfway up the island (about 1km north from where we live) before we turned back. It was time for lunch anyway. North Beach can wait for another day.

Downtown:

We were very thorough with sunscreen today, yet we both burned really bad. Both of our hands are scorched, his neck is dead (even after wearing a hat all day). We both also have Birkenstock burn. I wonder how these marks will feel tomorrow when we are trying to get our wetsuits on, haha! The sun is strong here. Good thing we are diving most days!

The highway

Lunch at Angelina’s again, the imagination is running strong here, haha! And then signed up for tomorrow’s dives and then some hanging out at the hotel room trying to pack and get everything in order for tomorrow’s dives. Won’t spoil it, but it will be epic! I hope.

We spent a little while on the beach by the dive center where me, Mikael and Tina got congratulatory shots from our instructor for passing our courses. Tina only got one, but Mikael and I got two each for advanced and Nitrox. They were good and not very strong.

For dinner we went to Amihan, a Mediterranean restaurant next door to Angelina’s but up on the cliff. It was not too special and a bit pricey, but kinda fancy and nice looking.