Not long after
getting up on our first morning in Bali we began congratulating
ourselves on our decision to avoid the Kuta area and come up to the
quieter part of the island. The resort we chose was lovely – right
on the beach, nice villa, nice pool, pretty good restaurant, friendly
staff and just the sort of laidback vibe we needed for the final days
of the journey.
We spent most of our
time just hanging around the resort – swimming in the pool,
snorkelling off the beach and reading. The resort was very quiet –
there were rarely more than two or three other families staying with
us. One of those was a young family who arrived around the same time
as us – the father English, the mother Turkish. They had two
children around the girls' age and the four of them spent quite a bit
of time together, playing in the pool and on the beach.
For meals, we mostly
just ate at the restaurant in the resort, which was set up on a
terrace beside the pool. For lunch, however, we often walked up the
road to a little collection of shops, restaurants and hotels, usually
stopping off in the basic supermarket to buy an ice cream for
dessert.
The long, curved
beach is a mixture of black volcanic sand and smooth pebbles/rocks
(mostly the latter, which aren't a lot of fun to walk on). During the
day, it acts as a parking lot for a motley collection of fishing
boats - small outrigger-style catamarans. The fishermen mostly go out
in the early morning, their colourful triangular sails lining the
horizon.
A local guy has set
up a little stall beside the resort, from which he hires out
snorkelling equipment in the morning. We all got a set each for
exploring the pretty decent reef just off the beach. We went out most
days, seeing a good range of colourful reef fish hanging around the
coral.
The snorkelling gear
guy also sets up tours to the larger local reefs, hooking tourists up
with fishermen, who take them out for a few hours on their fishing
boats. We did this one morning, putt-putting up the coast to the
inventively named Coral Gardens. The water was gloriously clear, the
coral and fish abundant. The girls eventually started to feel the
cold and climbed back into the boat while Kate and I continued to
explore the reef. The water was so clear that you could go into the
deep and still see the bottom, and I spent some time just hovering,
hoping to spot a shark or something equally large. Without success.
On the way back, our guide unfurled the sail and we caught the breeze
back to the resort, cutting through the slightly choppy water at a
quite impressive speed.
Later, for my
afternoon snorkel, inspired by my experience at the Coral Gardens, I
went back out into the deep water off the house reef. Again, keeping
my eyes peeled for sharks or other big fish, I noticed something long
and thin swaying above the sand. On closer inspection, I discovered
an enormous colony of sand eels, a small species in the shallower
water and then a really large species (I'm guessing at least a metre
in length) in the deeper water. After watching them for a while, I
swam back to shore and went and got Kate, and we both swam out for a
good look. Unfortunately, there was something with a bit of a sting
in the water, so our eel-watching was quickly curtailed, but it was
one of the most impressive sights I've ever encountered in the ocean.
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