Facing Fear & Practicing Patience: Gili T turtle snorkeling

As a solo traveler, it’s common to learn about a fellow stranger-turned-travel-buddy’s fears very fast. A fear of heights was a common one, and on multiple occasions I found myself standing precariously on top of a very high cliff next to a near stranger I met sometimes just hours before who would quietly profess a fear of heights, very pointedly staring out into the horizon and not down. Travel makes one face one’s fears – often on purpose. I contemplated why this is as I was facing my own irrational fear as I patiently waited for a turtle to wake up off the coast of the Gili islands.

My Fear

It started off as a fear of sharks. But over the years, it expanded. I found out there were much scarier things lurking in the water, including the water itself, and it evolved into a bigger fear: the fear of open water.

I’m scared of getting stranded out in open water. Scared of anything that may be lurking in eerie silence of open water. Scared of not only what might eat me in the open water, but even just brush against me. I’m scared of the power of the water and the mysteries it holds. Mysteries that could eat me.

Just a month earlier, at the start of my trip, I wouldn’t have dared swim so far out. Especially not alone.

I feel much safer in open water when there’s someone with me. In the world of my irrational fear, if a fish is going to attack, I need someone else nearby for it to choose from. When it’s just me, there’s a 100% chance I will get eaten.

But anyway, in the weeks leading up to that turtle search near the Gili islands, I had braved the deep waters near Indonesia. After surviving a panic attack while trying to swim back to the Nusa Penida shore the week before, I felt I could do it again. Not because I enjoy panic attacks, but because travel incites a kind of courage, and facing fears is the only way to overcome them.

Okay, to be completely honest, that’s not the real reason. I do try to purposefully face my fears, but that wasn’t really why I was snorkeling alone among the fish that day.

The real reason: I really, really wanted to swim with a Gili island turtle.

I went on a snorkeling tour the day before, and our guide pointed out several sleeping turtles on the seabed (that’s how I knew how to spot one on my own the following day). We even came across a swimming turtle, and although it was an amazing sight, the experience was not ideal.

Like a group of stalker fans, and the turtle as the celebrity and object of our obsession, we rushed to follow it in a hoard. Those of us with GoPros pushed arms out to the front of the group to capture the sighting. Limbs pushed against limbs in the struggle to swim clumsily forward without getting a fin slap to the face. And the three Chinese tourists who didn’t know how to swim now more fervently began to push against the bodies to propel themselves closer to the sea creature. Yep. Tourists who didn’t know how to swim were allowed to put on life vests, plop into the water off the boat and join our swimming tour. Not knowing how to swim. But that’s another story.

The point is, I got a small glimpse at what it would be like to swim with a turtle, and I felt the strongest compulsion to do it again by myself.

I generally try to avoid tours whenever I can to do things on my own, and that tour reminded me why.

Facing the Fear: Snorkeling off the Gili T island coast in search of a turtle

So, the next morning, I rented a snorkel and mask (no fins or life jacket needed; the water there is very salty and easy to navigate through), got directions from the rental on the best place to spot turtles, and set off.

I felt very compelled to find a turtle, but that also meant that I was going to have to live through my biggest fear. All alone.

It might not seem too exciting to some, probably most. After all, it’s not like I was putting myself go into those underwater cages where sharks swim around you. (Although, it’s something I’m considering to help me overcome my fear of sharks. Maybe. Probably not.)

But for me, this whole experience had my heart pounding and body on the verge of a full-blown panic attack the entire time. In my mind, this was the stupidest thing I could possibly do. Stupider even than riding a motorbike in the mountains with zero experience riding a motorbike.

Being in open water scared me more than anything on my trip, and for someone who has also experienced travels in Asia where almost every day holds a near death experience, you’ll know that’s saying something.

The Search

I snorkeled for around two hours seeing lots of cool fish, but no turtles. I was just about to give up, figuring I was testing my luck for too long with no fish eating me or a rip current sweeping me out farther into the sea. Where, of course, I’d die of either getting a heart attack, drowning or getting eaten.

There was also the fact that I was supposed to be working on writing my book during my time on the Gili islands, but that just shows you the lengths I take to procrastinate on it. More willing to stare my biggest fear straight in its face than to get my daily word count goal in.

I was feeling guilty about not writing and was about to swim back to shore (painfully aware of how far away it was) when I spotted it.

Easily mistakable for a rock or seaweed, I still knew I had done it. I found a sleeping turtle.

Excited, the first thing I did, of course, was turn the GoPro on. Because does it really count as a conquest unless you have the proof?

Settling myself to float above it, I waited for it to come up for air.

I was generally doing okay up until that point, but that was while I was swimming. Unable to follow Dory’s advice to “just keep swimming,” I started thinking. And while thinking is generally thought to be a good thing, it’s not in the face of an irrational fear.

Looking down at the sea floor where the turtle was sleeping, I knew the water was really deep. I can’t tell you how deep, but certainly much deeper than I could have hoped to swim down to. Did I mention I’m also not a very good swimmer? This made my irrational fear feel much more rational.

But it wasn’t the distance between the top of the water where I floated and the sandy seabed down below me, nor was it the distance stretching between me and the sandy shore of the island that scared me.

What kept me paralyzed with fear was what I saw in the direction opposite to the shore.

Thanks to the clear water and snorkel mask, I could see very well underwater. The water in the distance between me and the shore had white sand, coral and colorful schools of fish. Great for snorkeling, and worth being in the sea alone. But on the other side, the white sand drifted downwards sharply, like how people must have once imagined the Earth ended when they thought it was flat.

I was staring at the sea drop off, and all I could see was only blue darkness.

So there I found myself, staring out into the dark abyss, and wondering why I voluntarily put myself there. Why anyone would ever place themselves into a situation that scared them more than anything.

I tried not to stare. I would try avoiding eye contact with the scariest sight I could possibly imagine, turning instead toward the direction of the shore and desperately searching for some fish to distract myself with.

But it was hard to avoid, the great expanse of looming nothingness.

From which a shark could appear.  (Okay, so I actually had no reason to believe that there were sharks or anything dangerous off the shores of that island. But if you happen to know that there are, in fact, sharks frequenting the waters surrounding the Gili islands along with the pretty fish and the turtle, kindly withhold that information from me. This is a fact I could happily die being ignorant of.)

That went on for about half an hour when I decided I should really head back to my homestay. After all, the turtle could still sleep for hours. And I had to get some writing in as planned. Away from the pit of hell in front of me.

Because that’s what hell would look like to me; not fire, not ice, but an eerie ocean drop off.

Reluctantly (because I didn’t want to have faced the dark abyss of my greatest fear for nothing), I started to prepare myself for the swim back to shore.

And then I saw some movement.

It looked like one of the feet moved. I thought it was my imagination for the first few minutes, but no, the head was moving.

Yes! I thought. It’s awake! It’ll start swimming now!

I got my GoPro ready to capture it all. And I waited. And waited. Then waited some more.

This turtle was taking his time waking up. Slowly stretching, then pausing to rest between stretches.

And finally, it took flight.

That’s the best way I could describe its movements, because it wasn’t swimming like the slithery, jerky movements of fish. It was flying through a gravity defying space as though in slow motion.

The only other way I could describe the movements is with the word “majestic.” I never would have thought that word could describe a turtle, yet at that moment, nothing else I had ever encountered before was worthy of the word.

The rays of sunlight beams shined down onto the turtle’s shells as it gracefully navigated the water, drifting gracefully through the empty, blue expanse around us.

I hoped to get close to a turtle, but I never thought I’d be able to get that close. The turtle didn’t seem to be scared of me, and the fear I had held in that water lifted too. I hadn’t realized how heavily the fear was weighing down my body, despite the physical lightness caused by salty water, until that turtle took flight.

Swimming alone with that turtle, I felt as though it was watching me, staring right into my soul. Hypnotized by its movements, I probably would have followed it anywhere, even beyond the drop off.

Luckily, that didn’t happen. The turtle turned around to swim back toward Gili T’s shore, and I swam with it until we were almost on land.

It probably had its own good reason to swim back that way, and always swam at a slow enough pace for me to keep up. But I like to think it accompanied me back to shallow waters to make sure I made it back to land without something attacking me or without drowning during a panic attack.

Eventually, said my silent thanks and thoughts of gratitude to the indifferent turtle floating back to deeper waters.

Dragging my salt-covered body, pruned hands and feet, and sunburned back out of the water, I still felt incredibly light despite the gravity pressing my feet firmly down into the solid ground.

That hypnotic swim with the turtle, lasting around half an hour, felt almost spiritual, like the universe revealed some kind of ancient secret to me. I don’t know what it is, and never will, but something happened in that water. And I get why people love the ocean.

It also felt like one of those priceless experiences people still price a fortune of a sum on for tourists. Yet I experienced it for the price of the snorkel rental, roughly $1.75.

And did the story end with me overcoming my fear of open water?

Absolutely not. Looking back at the GoPro footage of the sea drop off, I feel like I can’t breathe. And not in the good way as when I watch the footage of the turtle swimming.

But a month later I was able to swim near waterfalls in Laos where little fish nibbled at you, and I think I can credit that solely to this magical moment I shared with that turtle.

If I had the choice to search for a turtle off the Gili coast again right now, sitting at home months later, I don’t think I could.

That would involve thinking about it, and that would make it impossible to act on it. But that’s the thing about travel. You live in the moment, and I think that’s what makes it possible to jump head first into your fear.

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Do you have a similar story, where you faced one of your biggest fears while traveling? Share in the comments below!

 

 

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