This week on the Gilis, north Lombok we did our first night dive on our house reef just in front of Villa Kerang, and what a fantastic new experience for us, not just for the student Firdaus but myself included. The night dive was led by our instructor Kuss, a local instructor that has been working on these islands for at least 15 years.
The highlight of this dive was the nudibranch’s, where ever you looked there they were. We must have seen around 11 different species on our 50 minute dive. During the day with all the colour and sun light it can be hard to spot all of them that surround the reef’s up here in the Gilis but on the night dive, focusing on our light beam and being in almost pitch black you cannot but help to spot them scattered around and the colour you see is mind blowing. A great way to have a lovely, calm and beautiful night dive, so peaceful.
The other sea life we spotted on this dive were, of course, plenty of cuttlefish, octopus, stingrays, scorpion fish, lionfish, eels, crabs and shrimps, pipe fish hiding in the rocks and all our well-known reef fish here and there protecting themselves for a night to come. We also had a quick visit from a white tip reef shark!!
Our house reef is a pure muck dive with critters everywhere, hiding here, camouflaging there. It truly has a lot more for us to discover. The more we dive the more we find!!