Advertisement
Published: July 22nd 2008
024 - Indonesia - Gili Air
06/13/08 - 07/18/08
Indonesian paradise
Gili Air will always have a special place in our hearts. What started off as a cool place to do a dive master internship ended up as a personal exploration of the love we have for each other: Hannah and I, companions and partners, traveling the world, committed to each other through thick and thin,
ENGAGED TO BE MARRIED AT LAST!
A first glance reveals tropical paradise: pristine waters, swaying palm trees, temperate days lounging on the beach, afternoons snorkeling or diving Han's reef, and lazy nights at the bar with seafood barbecues. Peel back the layers, however, and the heart of its inhabitants can be found. Staying on the island for five weeks meant that we got to know the real Gili Air. The dive internship was our mission, we would learn the ins and outs of a dive operation, but the locals would win our hearts and have us vowing to return for them.
The dive master program was amazing. The shop's philosophy was to develop dive masters to become prepared for professional SCUBA jobs by having them assist with actual classes and
dives. In addition, there was a ton of theory to study, get lectures on, and pass exams for. We learned about the physics of diving, the effects of pressure on human physiology, safety, decompression theory, equipment and environmental factors, and other interesting facts of SCUBA. We also had to master twenty basic skills of diving to a level that we could successfully demonstrate to new students. The program was relatively demanding and some days were exhausting. We would assist with two dives in the morning, return and take an exam on theory in the afternoon, jump in the pool to practice our skill circuit in the evening, and fall asleep while studying dive theory at night. Still, it was only diving, and no where near as demanding as our real world jobs. Luckily, the diving around Gili Air is incredible and helped to ease the 'pain'!!
In addition to Hannah and I, there were five other DMTs (dive master trainees) taking the program at the same time. This is pretty unusual for such a small shop, and we were scared that we wouldn't be getting enough attention. This wasn't the case at all, however, and all of the instructors
and DMTs became friends and helped each other out whenever possible. I was pleasantly surprised at how conducive to learning the environment was. I'd heard horror stories of some shops treating their DMTs like slaves, forcing them to lug everyones equipment around or fill tanks all day. This couldn't be further from the truth with our experience!
Often times we would go out to the village for some 'bankus' (take-out) local food. This was typically better than the restaurant food and much cheaper: one meal of nasi campur (rice with chicken or tempe) would cost about 50 cents compared to $2 - $4 at a restaurant. Mama Miskah was one of the locals cooks we met that fed our tired bodies. She lives behind the Gili Air Hotel (the nicest hotel on the island) with her husband Moyo (who is a cook at the hotel), and two sons, Effam and Arung. Struggling to earn enough money to send her sons to private school on the mainland, Miskah works long hours cooking food for many of the locals of the island. We became very close friends with her and spent hours on end conversing about her life and ours. We
even cooked with her one day and she taught us to make gado gado, a delicious local food of vegetables and peanut sauce.
Click here for the recipe. Despite her economic status, Miskah loves her family and life, and her exemplary character is an inspiration for us.
Yes, you read correctly before, Hannah and I got engaged! It happened on Hannah's 30th birthday and the story is a must read!
Click here for the story!!! And make sure to watch the video as well!
Click here to watch!!! The night of our engagement (and Hannah's birthday) we invited all of the instructors, staff, and some of the customers to the shop for a birthday/engagement celebration. Mama Miskah prepared an amazing spread of delicious local food that we shared with everyone. Her husband, Moyo, even prepared a birthday cake from the Gili Air hotel with extra frosting, as requested. The dinner was amazing and we all ate to our hearts content. It was a wonderful party, and although our close friends and family from home weren't with us, we felt loved and happy, and ultimately grateful for the amazing life we are blessed with.
Even living in paradise doesn't keep you immune to human conflicts, however, and I had
a bit of a falling out with my dive master instructor. The initial reasons were petty, but the main source of the conflict was a result of his lack of communication, and subsequently, my unwillingness to tolerate it. Things got a little ugly at one point (not violent though) and he was asked to take a 'break' from his job for a few days. It was an unfortunate event, but the shop owner and all of the other staff were very supportive to us, and made our last days on the island memorable none the less. In the end, although my instructor and I didn't walk away as the close friends I would have hoped for, we were respectful to each other, and I harbor no hard feelings towards him.
After a fast paced five week internship, Hannah and I satisfied all of the course requirements and became official PADI dive masters! However, one 'requirement' remained: the snorkel test, a well known tradition in the diving industry for newly graduated DMs. The snorkel in mention is a modified apparatus that has a plastic funnel (made from an empty 1 liter bottle of water) attached to it. The purpose of
the funnel is to direct the beer into the user's mouth as he or she chugs and chugs and chugs! The tricky part, however, and the significant difference from a standard 'beer bong', is that the user is also wearing a SCUBA mask that, although offering some splash protection from the large quantities of alcohol being thrown around the room, does not allow for any breathing from the nose. So, you basically have to chug the entire giant beer (equivalent to two beers) in one breath! This was quite the feat and we were happy to participate and pass this final test with our instructors and our newly inducted dive master friends cheering us on!
On our final day on the island we were blessed with some incredible diving. One of the dives was very memorable for me and I claimed it as the best dive of our trip, and possibly in the top three I've ever made. The location was Simon's, a colorful reef at around 30 meters with multiple canyons and rocky outcrops for coral and sea life to habitate around. It was one of those dives where I thought my mask was extra clear, as if
I was above water on a sunny day and could see as far as my eyes would take me! The visibility was easily 50 meters and there was hardly any current. I remember looking at a colorful patch of coral and thinking how great the dive was, when all of a sudden, I heard a commotion in the group and saw everyone frantically swimming towards something. I started swimming as well and encountered a large spotted eagle ray (by the way, we'd seen a manta ray a few weeks prior, which was also AMAZING)!!. This majestic ray was about 5 meters in length from its head to the tip of its tail, and was swimming gracefully around us. Even more unusual, however, was that it didn't swim away as we got nearer, but hung out with us for about 15 minutes, waiting for
us to lose interest! Wow! What an amazing dive, capping off a wonderful experience in tropical paradise!
On our final night we went to Mama Miskah's to eat and say our goodbyes to her. Over the span of the five weeks we were closer to Miskah than any other local we've encountered on our trip so
far. Our love for her was real, and our emotional goodbyes were only dampened by our vow to return to Gili Air in the future. We will return to to this tiny island in Indonesia, a tropical paradise where we became engaged, celebrated a milestone birthday, completed our dive master internship, and forged some life-long relationships with the locals.
Next stop, Ubud, Bali (Indonesia) for a couple of days of art shopping before heading back to Bangkok, and eventually, onward to India.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.08s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 11; qc: 28; dbt: 0.0345s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Ross
non-member comment
Congratulations!