Shark Bait!

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Exploration day! Today we played Robinson Crusoe and explored our atoll from top to bottom and in all the nooks and crannies too. We figured we had better given that our time here was nearly over and so far hadn’t seen too much of the rest of place as we’re quite content on our section where we aren’t disturbed by anyone else. Just a point to add, this blog is being written out on the porch while the rain pours down heavily on the roof, sand and big waxy leaves of the shrubs. It sounds beautiful and is conducive to the writing of a novel!

Before our exploration began we headed to the breakfast bar for some sustenance to see us through our arduous day ahead, trekking through the wilds of the land, encountering beasts and the unexpected, hiking under the beating sun, coping with heat exhaustion and visions of oasis’s and kept hidden from the spear touting tribal natives on the island!

Our breakfast chef/friend from Sri Lanka was ecstatic to see us as we hadn’t been to breakfast for several days and so he skipped to his station to make us some delicious omelettes with tomatoes, cheese, onions and lots of green chilli peppers! The heat was intense in our mouths, but it sure tasted good! He stood and talked to us throughout our breakfast and became mournful when he realised we were leaving soon. We know the staff here really enjoy our company and talking and laughing with us and will dearly miss us when we leave as the other guests aren’t any fun!

Sated we sauntered off in search of the big blue ocean and white sand. We didn’t have too far to go, only a few steps and then wandered down to one of the jetties we hadn’t investigated yet during daylight. The view from there was beautiful, overlooking the spa massage rooms and the villas at the one end of the island. The smaller sandbar didn’t look as nice as the one at the top of the island, but it was still beautiful. We hiked through the jungle of local flora and fauna passing the junior suites and two story rooms. We were secretly pleased that our room for less money was situated in a far nicer location than these big bucks rooms! Not much further along was the ‘Lobster House,’ a little open sided pavilion where they do specialised romantic candlelit dinners for couples. To me the main dining pavilion looked much nicer, but I guess when transformed at dark with lots of candles it hides the imperfections.

Just past the lobster house was the smaller of the two sandbanks. It was deserted, no doubt because of the baking heat of the midday sun beaming down on us! We quickly took some pictures before heading back into the shade of the lobster house to cool off and wait for our local exotic transport, a golf cart, to take us to lunch for refuelling before we could continue our journey west by northwest. With the sun blazing, we took our exotic transportation once again to the west of the island. Had we walked, we would have arrived there crawling on our hands and knees, delusional and disorientated from heatstroke as it’s about a mile away. The atoll is three miles in circumference, and one of the larger islands in the Maldives.

This sandy bank is the premier sandy bank! So beautiful, the turquoise waters, surf pounding on the white sandy shores, palms waving in the gentle breeze, and respite from the blazing sun under coconut palm thatched umbrellas. We bagged our loungers in the shade before any others could pinch the highly prized shaded loungers before grabbing our cameras to capture the beauty of the place. Once hundreds of pictures were taken, we leaped with glee at the thought of immersing ourselves in the beckoning turquoise tropical waters. They enveloped us with coolness and our toes sunk in the silky soft sands below us, in contrast to the coarser sand on our north side of the island. The waters were deeper and a little rougher as there was no coral bank to shelter that side of the island, hence the softness of the sand from the pounding surf.

Not wanting to cook in the sun we escaped to the little bar for some liquid refreshment in the form of a lime slushy, which tasted great. A bunch of finger bananas hung from the corner of the roof and we were invited to help ourselves. They were so sweet! We ate some of these while we waited for our cart back down to the snorkel meeting point as it was nearly time for our afternoon trip into God’s fish tank.

Today we only did a short trip away to a sandy bottomed area bordered by banks of coral. Ali, the dive master gladly took the camera again, but once in the water he had a new snorkeller who was in the throws of panic so he had to hold her hand, swim with her and remind her to breath. Both of us were thinking - what about our pictures!!! I was about to offer my services of holding her hand so he was free to photograph, but Ali decided she had best go back to the boat so called the Italian rep, Stefano, to take her. Ali, as well as us, breathed a sigh of relief and then happily went about taking our pictures! Today we spotted a turtle hiding under some coral, a moray eel with it’s jaws opening and closing trying to catch something, and then…. SHARK!!! There was a hollowed our coral, perfect for a hiding place, and inside curled up was a two metre nursery shark lying on the sandy floor waiting to pounce! All we could see from our vantage point floating above was the tail which could easily be missed. Unfortunately we couldn’t see the whole of the shark as our breath wouldn’t be able to be held to dive down 20 feet to view it. Also we didn’t want limbs gnawed off either so thought it best to stay on the surface. A short while later another large nursery shark was spotted, again curled up inside a hollowed out lump of coral. It’s a shame we couldn’t see one swimming around so we could hum the Jaw’s theme tune, but then again we might have had a fright if it swam towards us with intent!

That evening was Maldivian Night again. We looked glam in our sarongs and ours were admired by all including the staff. We took some pictures with our waiter Ilyas, who kept tickling us while we posed and then after we went to watch the traditional Maldivian Trance Dancing and Drums. Apparently it was supposed to be good and as we were repeatedly asked to attend by the staff performing in it, we thought we had better go, although neither of us particularly wanted to see the dancers getting into a trance like state.

Father and son were the lead drummers and did a superb job, but the backing singers left a little to be desired as they were all out of tune, but it lended its self to the complete experience I suppose. After a while of the hypnotic rhythmic beating of drums, one of the singers stood up and started to dance in what I would say resembled a slithering possessed snake. His eyes shone like red beads in the dark and it was all a little unsettling to watch. Dutifully we took some pictures, but really we wanted to leave as it was all looking quite occultist. The slithering snake then started making his way around the room to grab people to join him in his tranced state and so we made a hasty exit to the side to take a few more pictures before heading back to our place for the remainder of the evening!

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