My First Drift Dive

By George:

4^th October 2022

I got up at about 07:00 to get the dive equipment ready. We tendered ashore and arrived at Gili Divers on the island of Trawangan (fondly known as Gili T), at 08:15. We put on our wetsuits and took our gear. We had a divemaster called James who gave us a briefing before we got onto the boat. There were quite a few people diving on the boat. The boat drove us around the west side of Gili Trawangan. We all jumped in and suddenly we got swept out fast by the current. We descended down together. We dropped down to about 20 meters where the coral was beautiful. We were being pulled by the current unbelievably fast. This was my first drift dive, so I was pretty scared at first. It felt like we were going 100mph and all I could do was sit steadily. We drifted over some massive turtles, who did not seem to be affected by the current. A few white tipped sharks were swimming against the current going nowhere! We were then all signalled to hold onto the ground to stay still. We did so beside some very large turtles who did not seem to be bothered by us, so we got very close. I was finding this speedy drifting very fun, I felt like James Bond! Suddenly, Sabine lost control of her buoyancy and floated rapidly to the surface. Our guide, James, followed her. I could not see Dad, so I did the very responsible thing, I lied down on the ground and waited for someone to find me someday! Suddenly, I felt a hand poke me. It was Dad telling me to go up, so we did. We all reunited on the surface. The boat picked us up and brought us to a shallower spot with less current. We saw a black tipped shark, which was cool, but I did miss going super-fast uncontrollably with the tide. I insist that Sabine wears 50kgs of weights so she can stay down! We all headed back to the island where Hedley had done some shopping. At about 14:15 we set sail for Senggigi, on the island of Lombok, for the night. We had a lot of rain through the 1.5-hour journey. When we arrived, we headed ashore to a bar/restaurant on the beach. The food was amazing, we all had pizzas. After that we headed to bed.

6^th October 2022

We all got up at 07:30 after being woken up by the heavy rain. We talked about the fun we had had last night (at the Oyster party in Gili Gede). We then headed across to Seabird to sing Happy Birthday to Michael, followed by giving him a framed picture for his present. At about 11:00 we said our sad goodbyes to Joe and Hedley. They headed out on a water taxi. It was great to have had them onboard. After that we sat in the cockpit for a while, quite tired. Sabine made us a lovely lunch after we had refuelled the boat.