Let me tell you a story..
About a month ago, Andy and I were leaving Gili Air to head to Nusa Lembongan about two hours away by boat. We were apprehensive for our ride because arranging this boat had been a tad challenging. To begin with, the folks who we’d purchased our tickets from had seemingly forgot to mention that they actually didn’t have a boat that went from Gili to Nusa. So when we went to the harbor to find out our departure time, everybody looked at us blankly and quickly forgot all of their English. We had also heard many stories from other travelers about how the boats were generally unreliable, not super comfortable, luggage tends to get lost, no life vests, etc. Of course, we joked about this for quite a while with our British friends and even went so far as to lovingly rename the Fast Boats to “Death Boats.” To top it off, Andy decided to do a quick Google search to read some reviews for these lovely vessels. I won’t go into detail other than to say that every single one included tears, vomiting, and a near death experience at sea.
So here we are, transferred to a new boat company, looking out to sea in the drizzling rain holding all of our belongings. There is no real distinction between clouds and sky up above, just a muted gray. We can definitely spot the chop in the water like icing on the cake.
So what do we do? We get on board. I mean look at us, we manage a marina. We spend 50% of our lives on the water. We’ve lived on a boat. We own a 16ft Lund and an 18ft Crestliner and a stand up paddle board so you bet we are getting on the boat because we are tough. Plain and simple. Fast forward twenty minutes and we have found ourselves in the rollers. It appears that they are coming from every direction and they seem to be higher than the boat considering every time I look to the left, the passenger windows are completely under water. I look at Andy and he is stark white, his beautiful tan is no longer. I try to lighten the situation by making some small talk- “do you think I should have a mojito or a Cuba libre tonight at happy hour?” He looks toward me in slow motion wearing a look I have never seen before and he says, “I cannot talk to you right now.” It is then that I realize the look is downright fear. Meanwhile, little ole me clearly has an adrenaline rush because I can’t stop giggling. I feel like I’m on a damn roller coaster ride and am decidedly finding it to be quite a thrill! As I look around, I notice most of our fellow passengers are officially sea sick, the members of the crew are either sleeping or invisible, and our captain looks to be about the age of 12. As we approach each mean roller our captain revs the 6 300HP motors so we pick up speed and climb. Upon reaching the peak, he pulls back the throttle completely and we literally free fall. The whole boat screams like we are in a real life horror film (we are) until the 35ft boat slaps the sea. This happens over and over and over. I reach, just out of curiosity, under my seat where there is supposed to be a life jacket- there is nothing but chewed gum. Andy works up the courage to speak again and says in a shaky voice, “just so you know, if something happens and we go under, I cannot save you.” Good golly gee wiz. I notice that I am still smiling- I wonder what has gotten into me? Perhaps my brain was unknowingly signaling the handy “worry is a waste of the imagination” cue. How cute. I don’t know, but I will tell you that 30 minutes later when we were out of the Bermuda Triangle with our lives still in tact, we felt like we’d just ran a marathon. We laughed and we cried, overcome with relief paired with pure exhaustion.
That is the best way I can describe today. Ups and downs. Highs and lows. All about 30 seconds apart. I felt such tremendous joy when I played outside with my dog and when my friends made me laugh out loud multiple times in our group chat. Then shortly after I felt “Andy level” nervous when we thought the governor was going to put the state on lockdown and I was out of wine. This is such a wild, unexpected ride. In every way. I’m staying positive and enjoying myself most of the time, even laughing at things that clearly aren’t funny, but by this evening I was spent. I’m not even feeling ambitious enough to do a highlight section or a quote, so I’ll just have to keep all of those little secret joys to myself.
The view when we finally made it to shore.
Day 3 I just don’t know about you.