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The Gili Islands are three teardrops off the cost of Lombok stretching into a turquoise sea. We plan to spend three days on Gili Meno, the smallest and quietest of the islands, and a further two on Trawangan. On Meno we find ourselves a tiny wooden hut with outdoor bathroom to live in, and head straight for the nearest beach, where we live for the next few days, leaving the shore only to stop for delicious barbequed fish, or to head off on a dive.

Our first, at Han’s Reef, is a near-perfect dive, with vivid corals and brightly coloured fish which dance around us, neon purple, aquamarine, orange, striped gold and spotted green. We see triggerfish, brightly coloured butterflyfish, dozens and dozens of seargeant fish and once, moving slowly through the deep, a leviathan parrotfish.

Our next dive, at Meno Slope, is far more challenging, as on descent we find ourselves swept south by a strong current. Finding neutral buoyancy we can only bob passively as we glide over forests of anenome and waving starfish, while fish shelter under coral in flanked formation. The dive becomes worthwhile when a hawksbill turtle appears, an ancient mariner sailing through the current with astonishing ease, a breathtaking sight.

Gili Trawangan feels like a buzzing metropolis after peaceful Meno, and we spend a couple of days trying to cycle through the sand and barhopping down the beach. At the last possible moment we decide to stay a third night, and head to Manta Point. There in the depths we encounter three hawksbill turtles, digging for food in the coral. The first tolerates our company for a good few minutes before sailing off to eat in peace and quiet. The second is bedecked with bright saffron butterfly fish which dart in close attention around this ancient creature as he snuffles into the sand. The third we find in the last minutes of our dive, and is the smallest, a teenager with a scarred which Leah spots. We let our dive guide drift ahead as we watch his movements. Suddenly our guide is waving at us frantically, and we shoot forward to find ourselves in the presence of a black tipped reef shark – apparently vicious and rare for these waters – lazing slowly past with sinister sweeps of his tail into the murky waters of the Indonesian Sea, a final and perfect farewell to the islands above and below.