Trusting Nemo Captain

One of the best things to do on Lembongan is to go snorkelling with the manta rays and the beautiful sea life. We have done it every year in Bali and it’s always an awesome experience. Normally a gentle 30 minute boat trip on a small but very sturdy hard style dingy out around Lembongan across the open Indian Ocean to a neighbouring island of Nusa Penida.

On this occasion it was myself, my wife, my sister and my nephew. We had several days to choose from but instead of going on a small swell day and at a nice safe high tide, for some unknown reason we chose a 8ft swell day and left at low tide. Not the best decision I can ‘safely’ say.

Nemo Captain, our long time Nusa Lembongan Bali friend picked is up early and we set off. As we cruised past the Lembongan surf breaks of ‘playgrounds’ & ‘lacerations’ I could already see that the swell was up. As we got into the open ocean the panic immediately set in. The swells were huge & further out into the open ocean because of the low tide we could see waves were actually white water capping out on the horizon. As swells rolled under the boat all of us were in total fear as it looked like they were going to break right on us. It was the biggest swell any of us had been out in a boat. We hung on for our lives as the boat went up and down these huge swells praying the boat wouldn’t capsize. If I was panicking you could imagine what the others were feeling.

We finally arrived at the manta ray spot safe but still with out hearts pounding. We could see some there but the chop was almost 2ft high and currents insane. Not to miss out we jumped in to the craziness and trying to snorkel with them. After about 10 minutes of been thrust around in the water we just had to get back into the boat. My sister admitted she was on the edge of the boat ready to jump in shaking with fear but still, to my amazement jumped in. She saw one manta in the first 60 seconds then climbed straight back on the boat.

Nemo Captain saw that we all were rattled so went on to take us in to a more protected spot to do some snorkelling. Well the 8ft swells weren’t as intense but the trip was. We travelled quite close to the cliffs as waves pounded the rocks bouncing back on the boat and with the currents whirling us around. We thought we would be washed onto the rocks. If you were to come out of the boat here you would be sucked under the water by the currents and drown within minutes. I saw another dive boat taking the same path as us in front so assumed it was the safest path to take but still all of us in fear of capsizing.

The only saving grace was that we knew Nemo Captain had done this before a thousand times and had ‘full trust’ in him. Finally we arrived at a little beach where we were to snorkel. The swell was still breaking quite hard there so we all dove off the boat and swam 20 metres to the beach to sit for 30 minutes just to recover and calm ourselves down. We were also wondering how the hell we were going to go through it all again on the return trip. Thankfully in this period the tide rose and the swell and currents totally calmed down. We then spent over an hour in pristine warm clear waters viewing the amazing ocean life of Indonesia.

The return trip, although still quite a swell rolling under us, was no where near as death defying and we returned safe with a great experience and story to share. Nemo Captain laughing while wondering what we were all worried about…..

“You can always trust Nemo Captain”