This Gift of a Thing

Jungut Batu beach, Nusa Lembongan, Indonesia

Nusa Lembongan is the prettiest of islands. And I’m so glad I made it here and I’m so happy to be spending time back under water. It’s more laid-back than Bali and top-side (this is something divers say), life is beautifully slow. And hot. It’s 8 degrees south of the equator and feels like it. Lembongan is only 8 km² and is joined to its smaller sister island, Nusa Ceningan, which is only 3km², by a narrow yellow bridge. I’m staying in a small guest house called Rama Gardens, just off Jungut Batu beach. This is island life and I love it.

I’ve been diving almost every day since arriving here and it’s been awesome. In the truest sense of the word. Last week I saw manta rays for the very first time and just guzzled my air with excitement. They were enormous. From three to five metres across. And so very beautiful. The most graceful, extraordinary creatures you can imagine. The visibility was low which had been keeping my expectations in check but they came out of the deep like ghosts and danced above us and around us, in pairs and in quads. They came so close I could have reached out and touched one. On that same dive I saw a blue-spotted ray, a turtle and a bamboo shark. Oh, and an octopus, slipping out of his hiding place and changing colours as he moved. It was magical.

I’ve also been diving in currents, up-swells and down-swells, surges and thermoclines. I’m learning about drift-diving, when to kick with my fins and when to go with the flow, how to feel the movement of the ocean and how to work with it. And I’m enjoying the metaphors. It’s been challenging and I’ve had my hand held, but I haven’t felt scared.

The new moon has settled now and the currents eased off, which perhaps helped to make last Tuesday my favourite diving day ever. The water was 30 degrees and visibility was up to 40 metres. And the health of the coral at Sampalan and PED on the north coast of Nusa Penida was perhaps as good as it gets. The reef fish were plentiful. So incredibly plentiful. I’ve realised my diving thing is the big picture. As well as the feelings. I like looking for little critters and rarities, and I definitely want to see more big fish, but what moves me the most is seeing huge coral gardens and almighty sloping walls and drop-offs, colourful outcrops and bommies, and fish everywhere. The two dive sites that day were like giant aquariums just bursting with life. Although I do find it hard to take it all in and often surface feeling like an over-stimulated child. And yup, sap that I am, I cried. Because I can’t quite believe I’m here. I honestly can’t quite believe how fortunate I am to be doing this.

Since I’ve been travelling, I keep meeting people who say what I’m doing is inspirational. Or sometimes they even say that I’m inspirational. It’s one of the most surprising and heartening things I’ve ever had said to me. I don’t argue because I don’t feel I have the right to. But I’ve also been told I’m brave. And with that, I do disagree. Taking a year out to see and experience something else of the world has turned out to be not only one of the best, but also one of the easiest things I’ve ever done. And I sometimes feel like it was a decision that made itself. It started as an idea to save myself. Which doesn’t seem brave at all.

If I was asked, I might consider that having left college at sixteen (albeit in an act of single-minded defiance) and then returning to education ten years later whilst figuring out my way through life as a parent, and the rest, and winding up with a masters degree, could be inspirational to some. Or maybe the work I’ve subsequently done, heart and soul, as a counsellor and psychotherapist with young people. Now, these things have only been possible with the untold support of my family and friends but still, these are the things I’ve worked hard at. And I can finally say that these are the things that I’m proud of. So it’s curious to me that of the things I have done, that this is the thing, this gift of a thing, is the thing that is getting the kudos. It’s curious, but it’s also delightful.

These are my last two days on Lembongan and right on cue, the rains have arrived. So I’ve spent these final days mooching. Top-side. Reading and writing and even pub-quizzing. Tomorrow afternoon I’ll take a boat back to Sanur in Bali where I’m meeting a friend of forever from Byron Bay. We’ve got 10 days together with no set plan other than our first three nights booked in the coastal town of Candidasa. You’ll hate me for this, but I feel like I’m going on holiday.

On February 10th, I fly overnight back to Brisbane for a round of hellos and goodbyes in Mullum and Byron and Sydney. And on March 1st, I’m going to New Zealand.