Gili Air - land & sea

Yesterday was one of ‘those’ days - meant in the best way! After heavy overnight rain we woke up slowly and just took our time.
After a late breakfast, we loaded up the kayaks with our snorkelling gear and paddled across to see why dozens of boats arrive with snorkelers every day.
The current was really strong, so with Dale towing the kayaks, we pretty much drifted clad in our head to toe stinger suits (for sun protection - no stingers). The sun is so intense that I would burn in 5 minutes here! Much like home.
The first thing I noticed was that although there was plenty of coral and tiny reef fish of all colours, there were no big fish at all. I think the biggest I saw was a 20cm parrot fish.
But it was still beautiful drifting along. Our highlights were seeing a spotted box fish, an eel, a yellow trumpet fish and a stunning large (for its species) lionfish!
I am still learning the GoPro so the footage isn’t great. Wrong colour (red) filter for sure!
After snorkeling for about 2 hours, we’d drifted a long way and it was a hard paddle against the current yo get back to the boat.
In the afternoon we kayaked (the dinghy motor is kaput) into town. It was much quieter than before NYE. We walked a part of the beach road we hadn’t seen before. Lots of lovely casual restaurants and bars, clothing, dive, tour, massage, manicure places and of course a couple of souvenir shops.
We needed to find fresh produce so headed to a place that was a weird mix of corner store/traditional market. The veg were better here than the offerings last place, but still not of a standard we’d be happy with at home. But we found enough decent fruit and veg to do us. Protein was a different matter. After last time, beef is off the menu, and the fish was either dried or tiny whole fish that I wasn’t sure what to do with.
We found chicken in a freezer but opted against it as it was only half frozen. So fresh it hadn’t frozen yet, or a dodgy freezer? We weren’t taking any chances!
We decided to eat on shore. The restaurants were just too tempting! Zipp Restaurant and Bar was the choice. You choose your fish or meat and they barbecue it for you. Fine dining, white tablecloths on the tables right on the sandy beach - doesn’t get much better than that!
We ordered cocktails - happy hour - and while I sipped mine, Dale walked back to where we left the kayaks, and paddled them back to Zipp.
The food was delicious- tuna, prawns, mahi-mahi and butterfish with lots of greens. The butterfish was standout!
Just melted in your mouth 😋😋
Once we were done, we paid the bill - about $65 for both of us, including 3 cocktails each, then donned our head torches, hopped in kayaks (probably to the amusement of diners and staff) and paddled back to the boat.
I wonder how many other diners in up-scale restaurants there (esp given we were decently dressed) leave via kayak! 😆😆😆Read more