“Life is short and the world is wide” – Simon Raven.
Day 17. Sunday 17th August 2015. Iboih, Sabang.
Woke to a loud BANG on our tin roof. Dave spotted the hugest gecko ever. He could hardly support his own weight on our wall. A gorgeous fat-white transparent fellow.
After a sweet, doughy honey pancake & a diabetes endangerment coffee (so so so so sweet!) for breakfast, we had a swim. The water was clear, clean, cool & refreshing. We saw:
lots of colourful fish
one fish ‘attacked’ me 6 times. I was in his territory!
spiny urchins
a black & white sea snake
an octopus which changed colour & texture, from white to black to brown & spotted so he blended in with the coral.
AMAZING!
In Indonesia I have a constant feeling of vertigo. While snorkeling, the current buffets our bodies about. Trees are narrow and leaning at odd angles, swaying in the breeze. Butterflies flutter by. Geckos skitter across walls in the corner of my vision. We step on wobbly rocks, teeter on sections of concrete, step on slippery, glossy outdoor tiles & slimy leaves, sloshy mud & seesawing splintery floorboards. I feel like a drunken sailor, walking on a boat in high seas.
Indonesian people take our photo a lot! Sometimes they sneakily take our photo, other times they just ask and they pose with us. Today was another dimension altogether. While we were trying on masks and fins, a few twenty-somethings asked to have their photo taken with us. They were so excited when I spoke Indonesian and we had a good chat. One young boy of about 8, suddenly appeared beside me while I was snorkeling and took my photo underwater! And at the end of a two hour snorkel, when we headed for the beach, a man wanted our picture taken with his kids, just as we emerged face first from the water. We hadn’t even taken off our masks! So funny.
Our day ended the way it began - with the gecko. We got back to our room after dinner to find that the world’s biggest gecko had done the world’s biggest gecko poo in the middle of our floor.
