I'd do anything to spend time with my kids. Even go to Bali.

[Human]

After maybe another 15 minutes motoring in the boat, we stopped again and put on our fins, masks and snorkels. The attraction of this site was the coral. The coral we saw today doesn’t quite compare with the coral you can find at some of the most popular tourist sites in Queensland, but it came pretty close.

(Again, photos to come. I have, in the past, taken my iPhone underwater and it’s taken great photos. But the water was relatively deep and I was worried that if I dropped it onto or into the coral I wouldn’t necessarily be able to retrieve it. And in any case I needed both of my arms to swim. So I left it onboard).

 

[Human]

Another short trip in the boat and we disembarked here.





We were transferred into vans and were driven up the hill to this restaurant, where we had a buffet lunch, and afterwards were given half an hour or so to look around and take photos.






I’m a proud Instagram-ignorer, but my guess is that this is one of those “Instagrammable photo spot” places that certain people go crazy over. And indeed I did see certain people of a certain generation go crazy over it today. Nevertheless it has to be admitted that it was a very photogenic area!

 

[Human]

This was followed by the one part of the tour that I’m in two minds about. The tourists were put into vans and driven a very slow and incredibly bumpy 45-minute drive to here:



Then after about 30 minutes, we were driven back.

Yes, the view was spectacular. Was it worth a 2-hour detour? I have no idea. Not only was the view spectacular but the cliffs were sheer, and a large number of people where standing mere centimetres from the edge. Worth it for the sake of getting that perfect photo? No. Just no.

Anyway, back on the boat we were taken to a third snorkelling spot, where there was again lovely coral but also equally-lovely schools of fish. I’ve snorkelled the Whitsundays and the Barrier Reef many times, and I’ve even done the odd SCUBA dive, but I was surprised to see quite a few weird and wonderful species of fish that I’d hever seen before. I should not have been surprised that different parts of the world have different species of wildlife, I know. But I was.

 

[Human]

The final snorkelling stop was out in the open sea, and the tidal current was so strong that there was no way we could have returned to the boat once we’d dived in. Instead, we were told to simply drift with the current and the boat would come to us. The highlight of this stop was the sea turtles, which our guides pointed out on the sea floor underneath us. I did a few dives and got quite close; my Apple Watch Series 10 has a cool “diving” app which informs me that my longest dive lasted for just over 1 minute, and the deepest I dived was 5.3 metres below the surface.

Then it was time for the long return boat trip to Serangan. This trip was quite rough as the swell had picked up and we were powering directly into it. The sea was angry that day my friend!




By the time we arrived I was sopping wet, having sat outside at the stern again to avoid getting seasick. It worked. But I was also glad when we returned to the calmer waters of Serangan!



We asked the tour operators who our driver was and we were directed to the same driver who had collected us almost 12 hours previously, at 6:20am. He told us that having dropped us off in the morning, he’d just waited there all day for us!?!? It was almost a 90-minute drive back to Echo Beach in the evening traffic and tipping isn’t expected in Bali, but I did give him a tip nevertheless.

We were too tired to go out and ordered room service for dinner. I’m currently feeling exhausted and annoyed. Exhausted because the day was long and physically taxing. Annoyed because tomorrow is our last full day in Bali!