Gili Islands Snorkeling

"We booked one of the gili islands snorkeling tours from the harbour on Trawangan and were in the water within twenty minutes of leaving the beach. Two green turtles grazed on the seagrass right below us, close enough to see the barnacles on their shells. The water was warm and visibility past the drop-off stayed clear all morning."

"The reef along Meno Wall held more parrotfish and clouds of anthias than I expected this close to shore. Our guide spotted a hawksbill resting under a coral ledge and kept the group upcurrent so nobody had to fight the drift. Bring your own mask if you have one, the rentals worked but fogged on me twice."

"Snorkeling di Gili matched what friends had told me, though the crossing between the islands was bumpier than I expected and two people in our group felt it. The coral gardens off Gili Air were shallow and bright, with giant clams wedged into the rubble. Deck space was tight with sixteen of us aboard."

"The ring of submerged figures at the Nest was the strangest part of our gili islands snorkeling, sitting about three metres down and slowly turning green with coral. Sunlight came through in bars and lit the whole circle. I free-dove to them four or five times and still wanted more."

"Three stops across Trawangan, Meno and Air, each one distinct: seagrass beds with turtles, then shallow bommies, then a sandy slope with schooling fusiliers. The crew counted heads at every stop and looked after a nervous swimmer without making a fuss about it. The Lombok Strait current was mild the morning we went out."

"Visibility was easily fifteen metres and the water felt like a bath, so drifting over the coral took almost no effort. Two turtles surfaced right beside the boat, and I found a cuttlefish nobody else noticed. A Gili Trawangan snorkeling tour is worth doing even if you have already swum reefs elsewhere in Indonesia."

"I picked up gili islands snorkeling tickets at a small stand near the night market the evening before and boarding the next day was straightforward. The glass-bottom boat suited my mother, who stayed dry and still saw plenty of reef fish. My only gripe was the fins, since the larger sizes ran out early."

"I lost count of the green turtles somewhere after six. The water off Gili Meno is shallow enough to hover without finning hard, and the reef fish ignore you completely after a minute or so. Light was flatter later in the day, so the earlier boat suited me better."

"Some of the hard coral is bleached in patches, but the fish life is dense and the gili islands snorkeling still beat anywhere I have swum in Southeast Asia. Our guide was honest about which sites had come back best and swapped a crowded stop for a quieter slope off Air. The water was warm enough that nobody needed a wetsuit."

"Six boats converged on the same seagrass patch and it got busy above the turtles, with fins knocking around at the surface. The reef itself was healthy, and the second site off Meno was almost empty by comparison. Worth asking your operator which stops they actually use."