Friday, March 21, 2014

No shoes, no news.

Well, Maldives was everything I had hoped it would be. What a wonderful trip for our last. Except it isn't our last. Tim has time off and is going to go to Philippines to see his friend Mike who has a glider club. I will stay back, oh poor me, to insure that all our things find new homes.

Then Tim's sister Jeanette (alias Skip) is coming April 1-14. We have been invited to Norm's boat for a sail, so we will all go to Phuket for a sail. Aha!

Then Tim just discovered he has 4 or 5 days off near the end of his time, and we could and might do another trip. OMG another trip to plan!!!!

But back to paradise. I only wish. Maldives is gorgeous.  The islands are really sand shoals. With some growth on what remains above water level in high tide. That means that all the islands are surrounded by sand. Pure white powder sand. The water is the cleanest I have seen in all of our travels. (we even saw the hotel grounds keeper digging holes in the beach to bury sand shells that were not quite powder,. He had raked them up, and redirected them to under the water to break up finer!)

Our room was a water villa, a room on stilts over the water. And it is as beautiful as it sounds. The walkway out is lit at night and you see sharks and barracuda, and parrot fish well lit, swimming like crazy. Who knew they speed up at night! Our deck was six glass doors wide, we slept with the doors wide open, the ocean breezes blowing all night. I woke up just at sunrise, my camera happened to be on my bed table, and I took a pic. Note my feet, just to accentuate that I was still in bed. Ah, to wake up to this! Then you get up, and climb down a ladder off your deck, to the Indian Ocean and snorkel!




The most photo worthy trip, and I have very few photos.

I just knew that the photos could not capture the magic. But 5 days was enough. We ate at buffet breakfast, lunch and dinner. You, of course, have to try a little of everything. The food was wonderful, homemade ice-cream twice a day, several curries at all three meals. Tuna all ways, sushi, tartar, barely bbq'd. And it goes on.

Met wonderful people. A couple from Belgium, they are mid-seventies and still diving every day.

It is a destination from Europe, lots of French. British, German. A honeymoon destination. And I can see why. Met many who have been coming 4, 6, 10 times, every year, maybe to a different atoll, but they say it is the best diving around. And Tim would concur. He managed to get another tick on his licence, for diving with enriched air. (You can dive deeper and longer)

A friend of Tim's from Arctic flying works there in the winters. He saw him there, had not seen him for over 30 years. Larry does the winter in the Maldives flying twin otter on floats, and summer up north in Canada, flying sport fishermen around the Arctic!

The island was beautifully landscaped but the paths were confusing and even the last day we got lost trying to find our way. Thick jungle. But NO mosquitoes. We had a jacuzzi tub in the outdoors, so had a tub every night in the moonlight. Ahhhh.

We got a whipper of a storm one night. I was glad we were not out on a boat. It was fierce.


44 twin otters on floats service the Maldives. For some reason I really like them. (Tim flew single otters in the Arctic.)


This is an island, also called an atoll.  This has a protected harbour.




The owner of the resort has an island just 500  meters away from the resort



Our jacuzzi. We could open the shutters to the ocean view and watch the moon on the ocean at night.




They have added orchids to the trees along the paths.



Our delivery service. From the Male airport they picked us up and drove is the the other side of the airport to the docks, and we flew 20 minutes to our resort.



It was truly paradise. There just is something magic about turquoise water, white sand, a strong ocean breeze, palm trees. Their little catch phrase is  No shoes, no news.

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