As one of Indonesia’s top areas for scuba diving and snorkelling, with a reputation for being the ‘turtle capital of the world’, with year round water temperatures about 28 degrees Celsius, the Gili islands have become popular for beginners and experienced divers alike. There are about 25 dive sites around the islands of Trawangan, Meno and Gili Air, with a variety of topography (slopes, walls, ridges and canyons) and an enormous amount of diverse marine life.
 

This includes black – and white tip reef sharks, lots of turtles (hawksbill and olive ridley), lionfish, scorpion fish, cuttle fish and octopus, moray eels, sea snakes, different types of rays (blue – spotted, eagle and, from December to March, manta rays)not to mention schools of bump – head parrot fish every full moon and the occasional whale shark…plus countless varieties of hard and soft corals.
 

Haan’s Reef on Gili Air is fast becoming renowned for excellent “muck diving” where divers can see rare critters like frogfish, pink – leafed scorpion fish, flying gunard, mantis shrimp, nudibranchs, pygmy seahorses, robust ghost pipefish, blue ringed octopus, ringed pipefish, turtles, various coloured frogfish and Bio Rock projects.