Coastal cruising

Aaron and Dee and Jordan and I woke this morning in mellow Lovina (northern Bali, Indonesia). Although the bungalow rooms were very pleasant, the lighting in them was really poor (as we have found in many of our lodgings), too dim for evening reading. Breakfast which was included with the room cost was something new. Japle - 2 pieces of toast with fruit and condensed milk in between. How sweet it is!

Jordan in fabulous carvings of windows and doors

With permission to leave the van at the motel, the 4 of us hired an outrigger for 2 hours of snorkelling.

Judy, Jordan, and Aaron (courtesy of Dee)

We snorkelled in a shallow area and noticed lots of broken coral, probably from tour boats anchoring. We saw yellow needlenose fish and an unusual black and white clown fish, rather than the usual orange and blue colour. Schools of fish were looking for something to eat and would come to us if we held out our hand. Apparently many dolphins hang out in the area but we did not see any. We noticed a very unusual fine red object, swaying in the current, some type of coral??

Amazing red...coral?? (courtesy of Dee)

Upon our return to the motel, the owners allowed us to use their extremely basic kitchen to prepare a fruit salad for lunch from our purchased fruit. No rush to check out by 11:00 as in many North American motels!

We spent the afternoon driving west about 1.5 hours. Along this coast, the land is flat from the shore but soon rises abruptly for an impressive backdrop of steep green inland hills. Along the thinly populated coastline, we came to charming Pemuteran Village where we checked into another clean, nice, basic, and inexpensive motel with a woven bamboo ceiling.

Before the sun went down, we strolled the sandy beach which was a nice setting if not for the ever present disgusting garbage, diminishing the pleasantness of the scene.