Coral Garden

The highlight of the whole trip for Rick and me was the snorkelling trip we took to the other side of Gaya Island.  Most tourists go to Sapi Island, but since we had resident guides and our own boat, we were lucky to be taken nearby to Coral Garden, where we were the only people.  The coral reef was spectacular and almost as good as the Maldives.

The kids enjoyed the boat ride a lot, but all that fresh air and sunshine was very tiring for Raphaella and Gabriel!

We again tried to coax Katy into some snorkelling, but she wasn't really interested.  On the plus side, she really does enjoy swimming in the ocean now, whereas she was a bit uncertain about the salt water previously.

Raphaella got to have a swim in the ocean too - her first I think!

The waters, sand and beach were spectacular.  Unfortunately, they were marred by the inevitable bits of trash.  There was less floating rubbish around than Phuket though!

Gabriel got to have a swim after his nap.
 
Again, although the trip was spectacular for Rick and me, I think it was probably a bit too much for Katy and even more so for Gabriel.  You forget how overwhelming these experiences can be when you are little.

The driver of our boat loved playing with Raphaella.

Who wouldn't!

On the way home, our assistant guide took us past his water village, which is a controversial element of Gaya Island. 
 
The people of the village take great pride in their culture.  Some of the other staff are less enthusiastic as this is the source of quite a lot of the rubbish and pollution on Gaya Island, which makes it difficult to maintain the national park parts of the island.  We were extremely lucky it turned out as there was only a little bit of rubbish around, although of course it was a lot more than you ever see in Australia.  However on our last morning as we left the resort, there was a TONNE of rubbish floating in on the tide right into the resort. 

The water village is self contained with its own mosque...

and school...

The kids all loved the ride back to the resort in the speedboat!