Guide · Safety
Recreational diving is a very safe sport when it's done properly. Here's the part of doing it properly that's specific to these islands — including the thing most sites are vague about.
The short version
Diving has a low accident rate, and the reasons for that are unglamorous: proper training, careful briefings, staying inside your limits, and a team that knows what to do if something does go wrong. We cap every group at four divers per professional, we brief every dive, and we carry oxygen, first aid and life jackets on the boat.
The rest of this page is the specific part — the paperwork before your first dive, how long to wait before you fly, what actually happens in the rare case where a diver needs a chamber, and the fact that there isn't one on these islands.
Before your first dive
Everyone fills in a medical questionnaire before getting in the water. It's short, it's the standard diving one, and we send it before you arrive so you can read it properly rather than with a pen in your hand at the counter. If every answer is no, that's the end of it.
If something is a yes, it doesn't mean you can't dive. It means a doctor signs off first — a physician's approval to dive, before the water rather than after. The conditions that usually need one are heart and circulation problems, lung conditions including asthma, ear and sinus trouble, neurological conditions, epilepsy and diabetes. If you already hold a doctor's certificate confirming you're fit to dive, signed within the last twelve months, bring that instead and you're covered.
Two specifics people ask about. Pregnancy: every major dive agency advises against diving while pregnant, so we don't take pregnant guests diving — snorkelling is a lovely alternative and we'll happily point you at the best spots. And divers under 18 need a parent or guardian to sign. There are doctors on the Gilis if something needs resolving once you're already here.
If you're out of practice
If you're certified but haven't dived in about a year or more, do a refresher before you join a fun dive. Half a day: a pool session to put the skills back somewhere you can reach them, then an easy first dive. It isn't a formality — the skills that fade first are exactly the ones you'd want available under stress.
If you're partway through a course you started somewhere else, message us with what you've completed and which agency, and we'll work out where you pick up.
The end of the trip
Nitrogen leaves your body slowly, and cabin pressure at altitude is lower than at sea level, so there's a waiting period between your last dive and your flight. Allow at least 12 hours after a single no-decompression dive, and at least 18 hours if you've done repetitive dives or dived across several days. We tell everyone to give it a full 24. It costs you one relaxed morning on a beach and removes the arithmetic entirely.
The bit that catches people out here is Rinjani. Lombok's volcano is a popular add-on after the Gilis, and the trek climbs to real altitude, which does the same thing to you as a flight does. Treat it exactly the same way: 24 hours between your last dive and the start of the trek. If your itinerary reads dive, then Rinjani, then fly home, build both gaps in at the planning stage.
Count the hours from the moment you surfaced on your last dive, not from when you got back to the centre or when you checked out of your room. And count them against the departure time of your flight, not your arrival at the airport. It's a simple sum that people routinely do too generously in their own favour.
Being straight with you
There is no hyperbaric chamber on the Gili Islands. Not on Gili Air, not on Gili Trawangan, not on Gili Meno. Some websites are vague about this. We'd rather you simply knew.
The nearest chamber is in Mataram, on Lombok. If a diver ever needed one, the route is a speedboat from the Gilis across to the Lombok coast — Teluk Nare or Kodek, a crossing of roughly 15 to 30 minutes — and then an ambulance on to Mataram. Beyond that, there are chambers in Bali. The first response happens long before any of that: 100% oxygen straight away, and a call to the DAN emergency hotline, which runs 24 hours a day and helps decide where a diver actually needs to go.
This isn't a reason to be nervous. Decompression illness is rare in recreational diving, and rarer still on the gentle, shallow, well-inside-limits diving we do here. It's a reason to dive conservatively, to be honest on your medical form, and to carry the right insurance.
We strongly recommend dedicated dive insurance — DAN is the one most divers use. Ordinary travel insurance and ordinary health insurance very often exclude scuba diving outright, and the two things you would need cover for are the two most expensive things in the chain: hyperbaric treatment and medical evacuation.
The scale is the point. A single decompression illness event, treated and evacuated, can run past US$20,000. On an island with no chamber, evacuation isn't an abstract line in a policy document — it is the actual plan. Check that your policy names scuba diving and covers both, and if it doesn't, a dive policy for the length of a trip costs very little.
On the reef
Nobody publishes a decent version of this, so here's ours. It isn't complicated, and it's most of the difference between a reef your grandchildren can dive and a rubble field.
No touching, no taking, no standing on the reef. Coral is an animal and a slow one — a careless fin kick undoes years of growth. If you need to steady yourself, find sand, or one finger on bare dead rock.
The most useful thing you can do for a reef is be able to hover. If your buoyancy isn't there yet, say so. We'll put you somewhere shallower and more forgiving and work on it, rather than let you crash along a wall.
Mineral sunscreen based on zinc oxide or titanium dioxide, and nothing containing oxybenzone. Better still, cover up with a rash guard and use less of everything.
Gloves make it easy to grab things, and things that get grabbed get damaged. Bare hands keep everyone honest — and the water here is far too warm to need them.
No single-use plastic on the boat. If you see rubbish on a dive and can lift it safely, bring it up — we take part in Dive Against Debris and we'll gladly deal with whatever you find.
Turtles, sharks and rays here are used to divers and entirely relaxed about it, as long as nobody swims at them. Hang back, stay still, and you will see more, not less.
The reef
The Gili Eco Trust has been working on these reefs since around 2000. It's a local non-profit, and the work runs across reef restoration, waste management, environmental education and animal welfare — including care for the cidomo horses that do the island's carrying. Its clean-ups happen weekly, on Fridays, and anyone can join. If you're here for a week, go.
You'll also dive or snorkel the Biorocks. They're steel structures carrying a low-voltage current, around 1.2 volts, harmless to touch and to everything living on them, which encourages calcium carbonate to build up on the frame. Coral grown on them develops several times faster than it otherwise would and comes through bleaching events better. They've been going in the Gilis since 2004, and the ones off Gili Air sit in one to three metres of water — shallow enough to snorkel over.
The optional IDR 50,000 eco donation we mention when you settle up goes to this work. Nobody has to give it, and nobody minds if you don't.
Odds and ends
Malaria: there is none on the Gili Islands themselves, though parts of Lombok can have it. If you're taking an antimalarial, avoid Lariam (mefloquine) — it combines badly with diving. Ask your doctor for an alternative before you travel.
Glasses and contact lenses: soft contacts are fine under a mask. Glasses aren't, because they don't fit under one, so bring contacts or ask us about a prescription mask.
Periods: there's no medical reason not to dive.
Seasickness remedies: fine, but take them before you board rather than on the boat, and check with us first, because several of them cause drowsiness.
Reef sharks: the white-tips and black-tips here are small, shy and completely harmless to divers. Seeing one is the good part of the dive, not the worrying part.
No. There is no hyperbaric chamber anywhere on the Gili Islands. The nearest is in Mataram on Lombok, reached by a speedboat crossing of roughly 15 to 30 minutes to Teluk Nare or Kodek and then an ambulance; there are further chambers in Bali. The first response is 100% oxygen on the spot and a call to the DAN 24-hour hotline. This is exactly why we recommend dive insurance.
At least 12 hours after a single no-decompression dive, and at least 18 hours after repetitive or multi-day diving. We advise everyone to allow a full 24 hours, and to count from the moment you surfaced on your last dive.
Yes, but wait. The Rinjani trek climbs to altitude, which affects you the same way a flight does, so allow 24 hours between your last dive and the start of the trek — the same window we recommend before flying.
You need to complete a medical questionnaire, which we send before you arrive. If every answer is no, that's all. If anything is a yes — heart, lungs, ears or sinuses, neurological conditions, epilepsy, diabetes — a doctor needs to approve you before you dive. A doctor's certificate of fitness to dive signed within the last twelve months works instead.
We strongly recommend it. Ordinary travel and health policies often exclude scuba diving, and the cover you'd want is exactly the expensive part: hyperbaric treatment and evacuation. A single decompression illness event can cost more than US$20,000. DAN is the specialist most divers use.
No. Every major dive agency advises against diving during pregnancy, so we don't take pregnant guests diving. Snorkelling is a good alternative and the reef here starts very close to the beach.
No. Recreational diving has a very low accident rate when divers are properly trained and stay inside their limits. Our dives here are mostly gentle drifts on shallow reefs, groups never exceed four divers per guide, every dive is briefed, and we carry oxygen and first aid on the boat.
The course that changes how you dive: spotting problems before they become emergencies.
All SSI coursesFrom Open Water to Divemaster, four students to an instructor.
What to bring, and how a dive day runsThe packing list and the shape of the day.
Dive sitesWhich reefs suit which level, and where the currents run.
Ready when you are
If something on your medical form worries you, or your flight home looks tight, message us. We'd far rather sort it now than at the counter.
