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Published: March 5th 2008
Birthday Girls Special Day
February 27th……………Happy Birthday to me!!! Happy 37th Birthday to be precise, and what joyous delights does Mother Nature have in store for me today?? Sunshine? Birds singing blissfully in the palms above? Water gently lapping on the pure white shores? My tanned handsome husband serving me a breakfast of exotic fruits in bed?.......................Forget that!! Mother Nature thought “oh, it’s your birthday, well you spoilt brat, I think today of all days you shall have DELHI BELLY” For those that don’t know about Delhi Belly, I shall explain………The TROTS, there you go, that’s what I got for my 37th birthday……a day in bed with The TROTS!!!! I had it all, cramps, burning temperatures and that horrible sickly feeling that makes you want to curl up and die. Never mind, it’s only my bloody birthday….nothing special!! So, as you can imagine I opened my cards and presents, read all my lovely text message birthday greetings and went back to bed…..perfect! Barry on the other hand had a good day; he made the most of the sunshine and got ahead of me in the tanning stakes….swine! He had a lovely explore around the island, a snorkel and swim, tanned
Splashing around
There is a swimming pool on the island,but why bother when the sea is that clear!himself whilst reading a good book and generally made the most of his holiday. (He did keep popping back in doors to see if I was OK, and he kept me informed on what he’d stumbled across on his snorkelling adventure - sounded great!!!).
Anyway, enough of the doom and gloom stuff, it didn’t spoil things too much and by evening time I was feeling a bit better - luckily I had had the common sense to pack some witch doctor remedies from Goa that helped with the recovery. We made our way to the restaurant and by this time we were both starving having skipped lunch. I promised myself that I’d stick to a light meal but it was so difficult with all the gorgeous food before us. I think I ate soup and bread with a glass of water, Barry had the full works; soup, bread, grilled meat, fish, rice, veggies and a cake of some description - well he’s got to fill those hollow legs somehow!! Our table in the restaurant had been decorated with flowers and coloured rice by our lovely waiter Afseen (how nice), I also got a Birthday cake and a rendition of
Birthday Bed
Rihan told us that it took 30 mins to do this....it took us 30 seconds to dismantle it (shame) "Happy Birthday dear Sullivan" from Afseen and one of the other waiters (Cringe). After dinner we had a stroll along the main jetty then headed to The Grill Bar (on the beach) for a little drink before bedtime. When we got back to the bungalow the smell of tropical flowers hit us.......the room boy Rihan had decorated the bed with flowers. We felt really guilty disturbing it to get into bed, but it was either that or sleep on the couch!!
A typical day in paradise
I’m feeling much better today (not 100%!)(MISSING), but well enough to have my first glimpse of the fishes, being a Pisces I have a lot in common with these guys! We’d read that one of the best places to snorkel was under the far end of the main jetty where the sea planes landed and the boats came in. So, fins and masks at the ready we immersed ourselves in the giant aquarium. We weren’t disappointed with what we saw; it was beautiful down there, not much coral but shoals and shoals of fish that didn’t seem to be bothered by us at all.
A typical day in the Maldives consists of the following:
• Wake up, shower, breakfast
• Snooze on the beach
• Snorkel
• Snooze on the beach
• Watch the seaplane landing and taking off again
• Lunch
• Snooze on the beach / read book
• Walk / Wade around the island
• Snorkel
• Watch sunset at the grill bar
• Shower
• Dinner
• Watch the fish feeding from the North Jetty
• Catch some of the entertainment ( a band, a fashion show and crab racing)
• Last drink in The Grill Bar
• Bed
From reading the above list you get a pretty good idea of what we did for the rest of the day (and the rest of our stay). Watching the seaplanes come in is a bit of a novelty, they’re a bit on the loud side to say the least but we couldn’t really avoid them as our room was right next to the jetty - you can imagine how many pictures we’ve got of seaplanes!!! The fish feeding takes place every night at 9.30pm on the North Jetty, it involves a man throwing dead fish into the sea and a crowd of holiday makers standing above taking
Check Dive complete
He passed the test and went on to dive again later that day photo’s (none of them ever turn out well). We were lucky enough to see a turtle and a ray at feeding time as well as a small shark. We also saw a baby shark in one of the lagoons during our walk/wade around the island and another couple close to the shore in the sea. I was swimming in the lagoon after one of our long snorkelling stints and a baby ray swam past me - beautiful little thing he was, it’s hard to believe that one of those was responsible for the death of Steve Irwin. Crab racing (yes, really), it involves a circle on the floor, 9 crabs and a mob of spectators who are expected to purchase for the sum of 3 beers, a crab to take part in this so called ‘entertainment event’, oh well, could be worse, at least it wasn’t bingo! The band was of a similar standard to the ones that you get in Goa and Sri Lanka…..i.e. Not very good! As for the fashion show….zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, off to bed we went!!! And who knows, it might have been the best bit of entertainment on offer???
Diving with the creatures beneath
It’s
Shoal of Fusiliers
Being pals with the fish certainly puts you off eating them been almost 5 years since we last dived so we were both a bit wary of taking the leap again. The dive centre on Meedhupparu insists firstly on seeing your certification, log book and travel insurance, and secondly that everyone takes a check dive in the house reef before going off on the dive boat. The check dive is to make sure that you can perform the following three exercises correctly:
• Clear your mask underwater
• Remove your regulator (mouth piece) underwater and retrieve it
• Breathe under water using your buddy’s second air supply
After performing theses tasks you get to dive on the house reef for as long as your air supply will allow (you have to inform the Dive Master when you get to 50 bar). It all sounds very technical but actually if you get a good Dive Master when you do your initial PADI training its relatively easy, it just comes down to your own nerves at the end of the day.
Still not feeling 100% I reluctantly signed up for the check dive, I was a bit nervous about the actual dive - it all started to come back to
Angel Fish, Parrot Fish, Moorish Idol
80's throwbacks....they love that luminous look!! me, the pain in the ears if you forget to equalise, the pressure on your face from the mask, the sudden realisation that your 18m underwater with only a tank on your back to keep you alive!!!! It all sounds a bit drastic…maybe I was hallucinating - could be those Delhi Belly pills????
Anyway check dive day arrived; we woke up at 7am pulled back the curtains and were miffed to see that the weather had turned. The clouds were rolling in, there was a strong breeze and the sea was choppy. Apparently February is one of the best month’s weather wise to visit Meedhupparu (perfect timing we thought when we booked); however today weather wise it wasn’t good. I decided there and then that I wasn’t going to dive. I think what really put me off was the form that I’d signed the day before at the Dive Centre - it mentioned Asthma and Sinusitis (I have suffered from both), and I remember the doctor in Thailand refusing to sign me off as being “Fit to dive” because of the asthma (we got around that - but that’s another story)!!! I’d also had a bit of a panic on
Oriental Sweetlips
Just swimming by to wish me a Happy Birthday the Barrier Reef in Oz where I experienced pressure on my lungs, this was after 5 consecutive dives and I did dive after that but it’s always stuck in my mind. So, poor Barry was left to go it alone on his first dive in almost 5 years……well, not actually alone, he had a Dive Master with him and one other holiday maker who had also signed up for his check dive.
The check went well, Barry had a bit of a problem clearing his mask but apart from that it was OK. The check is done on a section of water beneath the dive centre half way along the length of the jetty, the actual dive is done on the reef at the end of the jetty and because of the weather it was a difficult task getting from one point to the other. Even the Dive Master was having problems - the current was very strong, trying not to damage the coral with your fins isn’t easy in water like that. They eventually found the drop off and went down to approx 15 metres; because of the conditions they sucked the air quite fast and soon got
Delivering the groceries
Every Friday the boat arrives with a weeks supply of food....thats a lot of food! Under the cover of darkness the boat was loaded with rubbish and gardening waste (obviously something they don't want the guests to see - but we did!) down to 50 bar. Barry enjoyed the dive despite the current and managed to see some quite good stuff whilst he was down there. He signed up for his next dive later that afternoon (hoping that the weather would improve).
The clouds disappeared and the sun came out but unfortunately the current remained strong so the next dive was a bit of a challenge. There were two groups on the boat (Open Water Certified) and (Advanced), each group had a Dive Master as the Dive Centre don’t allow un-guided dives, on this occasion this is probably a good thing because the weather was playing havoc with the diving conditions. Visibility was great (25 metres), but that current was unbelievably strong. Before taking the plunge the Dive Master told the group ‘not to go into the blue, stick to the wall and keep together’. They managed to spot the usual stuff as well as a turtle and some rays but it turned out to be a drift dive because of the current. Later back on the boat it was time to fill in the log books (each diver has one of these); it records your diving conditions, pressure group, sightings etc.
Sunrise on "our beach"
A perfect start to a perfect day Under the heading “Dive Site” you would usually fill in the name of the site e.g. “Coral Island” or “Shark Point”, Janet the Dive Master told them all to call this one “The drift dive from hell”
The last day on Meedhupparu was a gorgeous hot sunny one, we snorkelled a lot on the house reef. We found a lovely coral garden with amazing marine life. I think these fish were throw backs from the 80’s because they all wore luminous clothing; you’ve never seen so many colours in your life. The parrot fish were lovely (and big), you can actually hear them munching on the coral!! We hovered for ages at the drop off and were greeted by a massive Wrasse; he kept a close eye on us for a while and followed us around for quite some time. Barry reckons that you see just as much stuff snorkelling as you do diving out here….so at least I didn’t miss out on too much by chickening out of the diving!!!
Time to say goodbye
Our five days on Meedhupparu went so quickly. Barry says that he’d go back tomorrow, I’m not so sure. I did have
Maldivian Air Taxi
Mooring up for the night on Meedhupparu a wonderful holiday and I LOVED playing with those fish, but I like to see a bit more and experience the culture of the place that I stay at……on a tiny island like Meedhupparu that’s not really possible. I would certainly return at some point in the future but I have my eye on Cambodia, Laos and Borneo in the near future.
Hope you all enjoy the photos
(Don’t forget you can click on them to enlarge) Next on the agenda for us is our month’s holiday in Spain where we’ll be checking out the new villa……hope Brian and Ruby can cope with the invasion!!!
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jonny redmond
non-member comment
HI2U2!!! It's a shame you have to leave it behind! But it will still be there next year! It makes the BLUE PLANET AQUARIUM look like our Ians fish tank! Have a nice trip back! Jon