We were scheduled to go back to Ubud this past Friday, but instead decided to stay on Gili Air until our journey home on Tuesday. We’ll head directly to Denpasar Airport from the island via fastboat and bus, and then board our plane to Hong Kong. We head to Toronto on Wednesday, and should arrive home around midnight.

Theresa is a PADI certified open water diver now! She didn’t quite well on her 3.5 day course. It wasn’t without some adventure, but I’ll leave that stuff off the blog and she can tell the stories in person.

By the end of my time on Gili Air, I will have dived 13 times. I thought about doing another certification, but it’s a boring one and could take up to 4 days. I think I’ll try to do it in Owen Sound instead. I had a lot of skills to work on anyway, such as air conservation and buoyancy. I’ve managed to add about 15 minutes of dive time by working on my breathing and there’s probably more improvements I could make. Georgian Bay may be boring and cold to dive in (the ocean is 30c here), but at least I can work on that skill.

I’ve seen a ton of cool things under the water, the highlight was a black tip reef shark. It actually got up off of the floor and swam past us, I loved it. I took a video and a selfie with the shark and then karma struck…. NEVER TAKE SELFIES… when I was getting onto the boat at the end of our dive, I dropped my underwater camera into the water and it sunk to depths beyond what anyone was equipped to get to. So somewhere in the darkness of the pacific ocean lies a camera with photographic proof that people are dumb enough to take selfies with sharks. Yes, I had a float for the camera, it was nicely packed in my camera bag. Maybe one day the camera will be found and it’ll end up a viral story.

Caellum has had a blast snorkeling around a close-by reef. Today was the “greatest day of [his] life”. We got to spend about 5 minutes alone with a giant green turtle as it fed on the reef. We also go to watch as it surfaced for air, which is something you can’t do while diving. I’d say the turtle was about 3-3.5 feet long, so it was a good sized one. We have seen bigger ones diving, but none of those experiences were anywhere as personal as this one. I can’t believe I lost the camera, it would have been a great photo with Caellum and the turtle. NEVER TAKE SELFIES.

It was a long coral, we’d go in at one side and ride the current for about 10 minutes to the other side, get out of the water and do it again. Caellum did a really good job of fish identification as we did it more. I taught him the hand signals and he was firing them off the entire time. The only dangerous fish we’d see was a titan triggerfish, but Caellum knew what they looked like and worked to avoid them.

Another story we’ll leave off the blog, but I’ll mention is that Caellum made a new friend named Xavier. He spent a few days and evenings with us. He’s an Australian kid that lives in Bali and has quite the story. They’re both 7 and love Minecraft, enough said.

We’ve had few movie nights on the beach, which both boys enjoyed immensely. I’m sure Caellum has also enjoyed having someone other than a parent to talk to. He’s been awesome though, I can think of only one bad night on this entire trip. He is looking forward to getting home and seeing his friends, but that’s about it.

Caellum and I have had a great time picking fresh fish to have for dinner outside of the restaurants. He’s tried barracuda, red snapper, parrotfish and jack fish. I didn’t know people ate barracudas, but it’s actually pretty good.

This island has changed since the last time I was here and if I ever come back to the Gili Islands, I’ll like try out Gili Meno, which is far less populated. You’re seeing some spillover of certain people from the party island Gili Trawangan. There’s also a massive hotel  being built on the island, which will likely have a big impact on the population of the island. In 20 years, these islands will probably be 100% developed.

I have one more night dive to do, then my diving will be done. The first night dive was a good one, it’s a lot more intimate in the dark (duh). It’s just you and whatever is in the beam of your flashlight. The last night dive we saw an octopus, and those are pretty cool swimming by.

This really is a beautiful part of the world, filled with great people.

Caellum knows he has a backlog of blog posts, but he’s having too much fun he said. All of his schoolwork has long been completed, so I think he’s earned some time off.

We’ll try to check-in again before we leave.