Blogs from Lhaviyani Atoll, Maldives, Asia

March 24… I left Kochi today, headed for the Maldives. The drive to the airport was very uneventful, probably because it was only 5:30 am on a Sunday morning, so it was too early for traffic chaos. I flew to Male via Colombo, arriving mid-afternoon. My dive buddy Shelley had arrived shortly before I did – it was nice to see a friendly face from home after 3 months away. She hauled my dive gear and underwater camera to the Maldives for me. We had originally planned to stay in Male overnight, but because we cleared immigration more quickly than anticipated, we decided to see if heading to Kuredu Resort (on Lhaviyani Atoll) was feasible. After confirming with the resort that they had a room, off we headed to TransMaldivian Airways to catch the last seaplane ... read more

The heavens reflected our sadness this morning. The rain was pouring torrentially and apparently was set to stay like that for a week! Good job our time there was spent under the sunny rays instead of rain clouds. We were very fortunate. The alarm woke us up and we had to shower in the cool rain, before finishing our packing. A chap arrived to pick up our bags and drop us off at the breakfast hall, all-be-it in a very sodden state as the cart seats were sopping wet and the rain was lashing in on us. We enjoyed our last breakfast and our Sri Lankan chef whipped up a delicious omelet for our last meal there. We ate with the sounds of the rain pouring down and were wondering whether our little air taxi would ... read more

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 ... read more

Another day in paradise dawns and today we decided against going for a 10am snorkel. We still felt like we were on the boat being tossed about which was a little disconcerting particularly since the nausea was still present in both of us. Needless to say we skipped breakfast and just had an apple before wandering outside to sit in the sun for a while. Today it was hot! We were horrified to note that our usually empty beach had now become gridlocked with new guests! After a head count we had twelve persons on the beach. This is such bad news considering we’re used to having it all to ourselves. Doesn’t matter that the beach is over a mile long, with twelve persons on it, it’s crowded! Thankfully though no one really ever sits in ... read more

The day started with a very nutritious breakfast to sustain us through our morning’s snorkelling trip organised by the resort, which consisted of two pastries and some pineapple! The resort puts on two snorkelling trips a day, one at 10am and the other at 4pm, but apparently the best viewings are in the morning when conditions are better. The morning trips are further away and tend to be about an hours boat ride by dhoni, and today we had eight Italians and the British couple, who in fact are the only other British people on the island! They fly home tomorrow so it’ll just be us flying the Union Jack from now on. Well, the sea decided to be at it’s roughest we were told by the Brits since they have been going, so we were ... read more