Over the next few days, we found some activities around the island to do. We booked a snorkeling tour that takes you to several spots by boat and Gili Air, which is another of the 3 Gili islands.

There was a lot of people on the boat but the snorkeling was really nice.

We saw some turtles and a ton of tropical fish in the very clear water. We had lunch on Gili Air, which is the least developed on the 3 Gili islands. We were happy we were staying on Gili T.

Another day we rented bicycles to ride around Gili T, which takes 3o minutes if you don’t stop. We stopped at several bars and beaches that looked interesting to us.

We found the a very remote place called Exile, which had a beautiful beach and waves. In addition to a beach bar this place also has bungalows to stay in.

We also decided to try out standup paddle boarding. These have turned up all over Florida – it’s basically a bigger surfboard that you stand up on and use a paddle to move on the water.

I had a little trouble getting my balance as you can see in this video.

Shannon, a former gymnast, had no problem staying up.

I got a little better and Shannon finally fell when she tried to do a head stand.

While we did go on a snorkeling tour to other locations by boat, the snorkeling right off Gili T is also fantastic.

Here’s a video of a juvenile turtle swimming around.

Another video of a bunch of squid swimming.

I was also able to get really close to an awesome creature called a peacock mantis shrimp. These creatures are really cool and this slide show explains a lot of about their unique features.

Here’s a video I took of the mantis shrimp swimming along the bottom.

I also found a couple nudibranchs.