Okay, its update time. No point in blibber blabbin, gotta jump right into it. So tighten your belt, put down that remote and get ready for the blogs of all blogs............. or if you just need to kill a few minutes, this will do the job too.

Gilli Island is where we left off, and oh yes, what an island it was. We spent a total of 7 days there and successfully completed our "Advance Open Water Dives". Pretty cool place to do some diving. There's a lot of dead coral there due to the local fishermen having historically done fish bombing but the Diving community have been working to change things. There are about 6 dive shops on the island and each one has put out an artificial reef in the ocean in front of there stores. Its pretty much just a bunch of metal tubing all connected to each other. They attach a electric current to the unit to stimulate and speed up the corral making process. Apparently calcium grows on the area that has the electrical charge 5 times faster then without. Corral likes calcium and badda-bing badda-boom, you have a new living reef . Pretty neat. We have a bunch of pictures of it so when you see these big metal looking things in our photo album, you know what it is.

We also managed to track down a few watermelons at the local fruit stand. So after our afternoon dive on Halloween (crazy to think that we were diving and soaking up the sun on a day that we're so used to being cold and snowy), We carved our watermelons. Gotta tell ya we got some pretty weird looks tossed our ways by the locals. I'm sure they thought that us crazy Canucks where fascinating creatures. But we carved away and tried to ignore all the pointing and laughing. Truth of it is they were pretty impressed with the final outcome. They weren't really sure why we did it every halloween, but they sure did like the way they looked all lit up. The local street kids where all over them. Sure did jump start the halloween spirit in me. I felt like dressing up and scaring the crap out of the locals, but had a few drinks with some fellow divers and Instructors instead.

The next day we packed our stuff and headed south of Lombok to Kuta. (not to be confused with Kuta Bali). Here we did the only thing you could to in a small surfing town, SURF!!!!!!!!! It sure was fun, I mean our guides took us to the beginners place but I don't know if you call 7 foot waves beginner. None the less Karina and I jumped off the boat, on to our boards, and paddled for the waves. I would like to tell ya we spent the whole day riding the monster waves, but instead we pretty much got tossed around like lettuce in a blender. We spent about 3 hrs out there and I think between the two of us we only caught 5 good waves (Brad's really being generous! It was my first time on a board and I could hardly do that. I can tell you all 5 were his. The only thing I caught was a thorough wave beating! Thanks anyways Honey.), But it sure was a good work out. Nothing like hitting those arms and back, by fighting to stay afloat for 3hrs. We went to bed early that night.

Next day we met up with a English couple who took us to another surf spot about 40min away. We rented a motorbike and took off in the afternoon. The ride itself was one of the biggest adventures of our trip yet. We started on a nice paved road, crawling our way up the hills in first gear, then flying down the other side in neutral. The road follows the coast so every time you get to the top of a hill all you can see is the ocean, beaches and palm trees for miles and miles. Nothing like taking back roads to see the real beauty of a place. We felt like royalty every time we past a small hut, the little kids would be yelling "hello, helloooooo" and we would wave back, bringing huge smiles to their faces. The older kids who saw us coming would run out to the street and give us a high five as we flew by them. It sure was fun. Our road then deteriorated to a real sketchy dirt path through a farmers field. Had to white knuckle it for about 3 miles but we arrived in one piece. It was worth the drive, big waves, beautiful beach, and not a building in sight. Spent the afternoon getting beat up by the waves, Karina took pictures, collected shells and sunbathed. We had to leave earlier then we wanted due to some rain clouds coming in. Dirt roads, rain and an inexperience bike driver don't mix that well. We had a tuff enough time with the dirt road, we didn't want to chance it with mud.

After only 3 days in southern Lombok we decided to go where the real waves are and headed back to Bali.

We are now staying in Kuta, southern Bali. The first night here was a little scetchy and all in all a little weird. We found a pretty good place to stay, probably considered higher end so we thought we would be pretty safe. When we first got to our room we heard some thuds coming through the walls. Could be anything really...so we thought nothing of it. When night came and we retired to our room the noise was still there, coming speratically. Now it was just too dark to investigate, though it did sound as if the source was inside the walls. Impossible though as the walls are concrete. I, of course being the typical Beniuk boy, was out in minutes never to hear the noise again until much later. Karina on the other hand had a much more difficult time. With every thud or muffeled sound of movement she would was awoken, partically from fear, partially from the mystery of what-the-heck it could be. Finally, after a massive storm which brought with it an abunance of thuds and bangs (all of which Karina was awake for), in the early hours of the morning, from a sleep in which she was finally been able to surcome to, she heard "it's" voice. Immediately she was up, dressed and down at the front desk. After two more phone calls and a further three sleepless hours, a crew showed up to remove our pest from the roof. You see we were on the top floor and the roofs here typically have a crawl space much like at home. I, having been rudely awoken from all the commotion and still not completely convinced as to the source, was expecting perhaps a huge cockroach, perhaps a family of cockroaches, or perhaps even, a bat...see pictures for the reveal.


So after all that we were planning to go west and find a nice quite beach with some surf but decided that with only a few more days left in Bali we would do our surfing off the crowded beach of Kuta. We've gone 3 times now and are starting to get the hang of it. Karina is doing real good as well. On her 3rd try she got up and rode most of the wave to shore. Now I'm having a hard time keepin up. Unfortunatly our last surfing go, we burnt our faces pretty good. Karina got burnt on the back of her legs as well, so we had to miss a day of surfing to lube up our burns. Instead Karina spent the day in the air conditioned malls and stores shopping up a storm. No burn is gunna keep her away from all the good shopping. Myself I spent the day updating our website and posting some pictures.

The next two days we plan on surfing as much as we can, cause we head back to Ubud on the 11th. There we do some last minute gathering of christmas presents and arrange to ship home a container of goods. Probebly wont arrive till after christmas, So our family might have to wait a few weeks to get there gifts.

We are pretty sad to be leaving Bali but have to and will continue our trip to northern Thiland in Chang Mia. We probebly wont be able to write until we get there, so we wont update our blog for a week or so.

Be sure to check out the halloween carvings, not many entries but the ones who did sure did one heck of a job. (check back in two days, they will be up then.)

Hope you all are safe and well, we cant wait to see you when we get home. Until next time........... ciao for now.