We made the most of our holiday to the Maldives. Picking up from when my last blog ended, we snorkeled on Wednesday and that experience reminded me of Finding Nemo. We snorkeled on a reef that could best be described as a "drop-off." On our left, we saw tons of tropical fish swimming around the reef and on our right, just a deep blue abyss. Our guide attempted to point out a shark to me (out in the deep blue) but honestly I didn't look too hard or I may have been back in the boat rather quickly! I had never seen so many beautiful fish in one place while snorkeling so it was a worthwhile excursion. In the afternoon I curled up with a good book on the beach while Brian had his first kite surfing lesson. In the evening we enjoyed dinner on our back porch -- eating grilled seafood by candlelight was the perfect way to end the day. We went out on our beach after dinner and when we turned on our flashlight, the entire beach began moving. As it turns out, there are tons of crabs of all varieties that come out of hiding at night. They looked like huge spiders moving on the sand. After catching some pictures of the little critters, we decided it was better to go home than try to walk amongst our sea friends! After that sight, we never wondered again about the rather large holes in the sand that we came across during the day.
Thursday morning we went windsurfing in the lagoon between the three islands. Brian has windsurfed a few times but it was a new adventure for me. I was worried I wouldn't even be able to balance on the board, let alone grasp the sailing part. Lucky for me, George the water activities director was a good teacher and I was up and "surfing" pretty well by the end of the lesson. It wasn't as hard as I expected, as long as someone was telling me where to aim my sail from time to time. We lounged all afternoon and ate dinner at an Italian place on the neighboring island. I hadn't realized how remote our island was until we reached the other island and actually saw people... and a few kids! We only saw 2 other couples the entire time on Naladhu and I guess we got a little spoiled :) When we arrived back on Naladhu after our dinner, our housemaster Ali was waiting for us on the boat dock. He seemed concerned that we had gotten lost on the other island because we were back later than anticipated. When we retired to the villa for the night, we found a candlelit bubble bath and anniversary decorations made from flower petals on our bed. This totally explained Ali's behavior. He had lit dozens of candles in our villa and probably worried about burning the place down before we returned. We appreciated those special touches...
Friday was our last day at Naladhu and we had a full day. We kayaked to a little island out in the lagoon and discovered a rather large and not so friendly eel while exploring the island. We lounged by the pool at one of the other resorts and Brian wrapped up his kite surfing lesson by successfully using a kite to propel himself on a wake board. I was a little nervous about the idea of him being connected to a huge kite during strong winds while on a wake board out in the ocean -- is it just me, or does that sound a bit crazy? I kept envisioning the activity transforming into parasailing and wondering if we'd have to send out a jetski to retrieve him. He came back in one piece so I'm sure he'll want to build on his skills the next chance he gets.
We wrapped up our stay with a delicious seafood dinner at our resort before taking an incredibly rough boat ride back to the airport. I doubt my grilled snapper would have stayed down if I had to endure 5 more minutes of waves. We flew out of Male at 11pm and arrived back in Singapore early Saturday morning. We agreed that an extra day would have been nice but we certainly enjoyed the time we had and are so thankful that Brian's parents cared for the girls so we could experience this island gem.
The Maldives easily ranks as one of our favorite vacations. It was one of our most relaxing, luxurious getaways we've ever had. The water is beautiful. We felt like we had an entire island to ourselves. Our villa was awesome. I didn't wear shoes the entire vacation. Our breakfast waiter wanted us to order everything on the menu each morning and I loved him for that (breakfast was included in our package). There were no streets, cars or noise to disrupt the peacefulness of the islands. Everyone went out of their way to give us the trip of our dreams and that made it even better. As I shared with Brian on about Day 2 of the trip -- I think I'm a fan of the "small luxury hotels of the world!"Probably the only downside was that rain interrupted our day a couple times. Of course, that was a known risk since it's the rainy season right now. And during those times I especially appreciated having a nice villa to relax in while the weather passed.
Our vacation made us aware of another benefit of living overseas. We had never heard of this little spot in the Indian Ocean until Brian saw it in a Singapore Air magazine article. I love being able to visit a place that we likely never would have encountered if we weren't living in the region. I'm thankful that residing in Singapore allowed for this once in a lifetime experience.
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