The Magical Islands of the Maldives

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It’s going to be quite difficult to write this blog without it seeming like marketing from the Maldives Tourism Board. But these islands really are magical. Where it will probably differ is the advice and extremely strong encouragement to stick to the inhabited islands. While we didn’t actually visit any of the resort islands – despite getting an offer of a mates’ rates deal on a few of them through a friend, which she said were “mid-range” but the cheapest was US$2000 per night – we could often see across to resort islands and actually pitied the people staying on them who couldn’t have the experience we were having.



First island: Hulhumalé

When you arrive into the Maldives at 07:30 and have onward domestic flights at 15:20, what do you do? Certainly don’t linger in the little airport and we would have to stopover in Malé later in the trip. Instead, we stuck to Hulhumalé, the mostly manmade island which connects via a causeway to Hulhulé where sits the airport (so I suppose Hulhulé was actually the first island).

Hulhumalé was constructed to take some pressure off of tiny, overcrowded, polluted Malé – more on that later. Hulhumalé has wider streets, much more green space, and lower apartment blocks with vegetated spaces in between designed to funnel and cool air flow. The aim of this design is to reduce reliance on air-conditioning; the Maldives after all is probably the last place on Earth that wishes to contribute to global warming and consequent sea level rise. For that reason, Hulhumalé has also been constructed/reclaimed higher than Malé, though only two metres rather than one metre above sea level.

Reaching the centre of Hulhumalé we had our first experience of Maldivian hospitality. After leaving our bags in left luggage at the airport, we planned to take the bus. We asked an airport security guard where it leaves from as the internet advice of “next to Burger King” proved incorrect (it leaves from in front of the Domestic Terminal). He pointed out the bus stop but informed us we needed a transport card to use the bus and directed us towards where we could find one. We then spoke to another security guard who saw us wandering confused who told us we could only buy the card in Hulhumalé but we could pay by cash (we had already taken out Maldivian Rufiyaa from an airport ATM). The bus promptly arrived but we couldn’t get on because they didn’t accept cash, only transport cards. There appeared the first security guard who lent us his card to tap ourselves in. It wasn’t a lot of money but it was very good of him; we would have been stuck otherwise.

Hulhumalé has a long beach running down the east side of the island. The adjacent road has lots of little cafes/restaurants. We staggered into one of the first we came across following the overnight flight finding one that seemed popular with locals – not that we ever saw any non-locals on the island. We loaded plates from a breakfast buffet having no idea what we were about to eat. It was delicious. Extremely spicy coconut fishy stuff, scooped up with stacks of rotis. We ended up sitting under the trees on the surprising pleasant beach for a while – nobody else was on it in the heat of the day. There’s also a nice park in the middle of the island that we wandered around to look at the flowers, the birds, big lizards and overhead streams of seaplanes lugging rich folks to their distant resorts.

We were told at the Hulhumalé ferry port that they didn’t have any transport cards left but they sold us two bus tickets for the trip back to the airport. In our second café of the day while drinking our second delicious fruit juice of the day, I think we went passion fruit then mango, we asked where the nearest bus stop was. A man in the café decided he would take us. After walking a few blocks we got to the bus stop and we asked when the bus would be. “Don’t worry, I’ll call the driver”. Turns out it wasn’t soon because he then flagged down a taxi to take us. We said we already had a bus ticket and he said “No problem, I will pay. Don’t worry, I’m a policeman.” So in we got and we whizzed back to the airport.



Second island: Fuvahmulah

I don’t know how I first heard of this island, probably when Googling “best diving in the Maldives”. It is a long way south from Male: a 1.5 hour flight almost to the southern tip of the chain and just on the other side of the equator. It is also the only island that is not part of a larger atoll; it is the atoll. This is something the locals are very proud of and will inform you of quite often. They are equally proud of being the only Maldivian island with beaches made of 50, 60, 70, depending on who you speak to, varieties of sand and pebbles! “All the other Maldives islands have only pure white sand!” as if that is bad thing!?

It’s quite a big island, 5 km by 1 km, the third largest in the Maldives with the third highest population of 14000. Surprisingly, it has freshwater lakes. Two of them in the middle of the island surrounded by palm forests and taro plantations, they are lovely. There are also ancient ruins of Buddhist temples that were destroyed when Islam first reached the islands around 1300, though you have to use your imagination because they are now just a rocky heap. What there isn’t, is a bikini beach – the name given to the stretches of beach on inhabited islands where there is no requirement to remain covered up. That’s because there are very few tourists on the islands. You can see on the photos that the beach is beautiful but it’s rough and rocky with no protective reef. The few tourists here have mostly come for the sharks.

Words cannot really do it justice when you are sitting on the seabed and a four-metre tiger shark swims over your shoulder. Or when two of them swim straight at you fighting over a tuna head discarded from the nearby fish processing plant. Or when the ball of scrapping tuna, jacks and trevallies burst apart because a silver tip shark flashes in from the deep, grabs something and disappears again. This particular dive is done on a shelf at the edge of the harbour, we did it twice, it was one of (two of) my greatest ever wildlife experiences – it belongs on that list in addition to the list of greatest diving experiences. Watching the diving videos again, I get quite anxious seeing how close, how big and how toothy the tiger sharks were. At the time it was quite serene. The photos included with this blog don’t do it justice; they are clipped out of many many videos. The videos, however, do confirm just how beautiful, graceful and indifferent these big tiger sharks are.

Elsewhere around the island’s reef wall you can regularly see manta rays, thresher sharks, whale sharks, etc. We didn’t see them but we did see stupendous shoals of many varieties of fish, loads of reef sharks, very beautiful corals, spectacular visibility (like 40-50 metres), the diving was incredible. It's impossible to describe, just believe the hype about diving in the Maldives. Though it’s also true about the currents – they can be vicious.

Between each dive and after the final dive each day we just wandered around. I really like Fuvahmulah because it was real. Without tourists it wouldn’t be any different because there are hardly any tourists there. The food was probably the best we ate in the Maldives because it wasn’t dumbed down for tourists. On the other islands you have to specifically request spice. I think we had tuna curry at least twice per day and it never got tedious. Lots of people stopped to chat to us, some of whom then gave us lifts to cafes on their motorbike. We were invited into a house for an incredible lunch, including all kinds of local foods that we never came across in any restaurants. Lovely lovely people.



Third island: Malé

The domestic flight back from Fuvahmulah arrived at 19:20 then we took a taxi over the new mostly Chinese funded bridge into Malé. The island reminded me of the entirely urban planet in Star Wars (I looked it up: ‘Coruscant’). It is an island tightly crammed with high rise buildings, narrow motorbike clogged streets, no pavements, dust and fumes. You will mistakenly think you are in India rather than the Maldives. I still wanted to see it but thankfully we weren’t there long; we were on a speedboat about 10am the following morning heading south.



Fourth and fifth islands: Felidhoo and Thinadhoo

When researching which islands to visit, I looked at where the public ferries went from Malé. There were a few directions that you could go where it seemed possible to hop between several islands using only these cheap and we thought interesting to be travelling with the locals boats. We opted to head south but not stopping in Maafushi, probably the most well-known ‘backpacker’ island, as we had heard it had become quite over-developed being so close to Malé. It was also on the covid-watchlist meaning cases were sufficiently high that travel to and from there was restricted. If you visit inhabited islands in the Maldives, you have to take a PCR test in order to leave the country. If you test positive you have to stay, which doesn’t sound too bad, but you have to stay quarantined in a hotel for ten days. Thus we wanted to avoid Maafushi and went for the complete contrast: Felidhoo.

I should note that shortly before we departed for the Maldives (in February 2022), we discovered that public ferries weren’t running to Malé. They stopped early in covid times and were yet to restart; essentially to restrict movement between the covid-rich capital and the outer islands. Therefore, we had to get the pricey but fast scheduled speedboats instead. However, when hopping between islands within Vaavu Atoll, the super cheap public ferry was still available.

Despite being the capital of Vaavu Atoll, so hosting government buildings, a hospital and police station, Feidhoo is extremely quiet. Our guesthouse was one of only three, all of which are small, low key, and sit about 10 metres from the bikini beach. It’s a narrow beach with plenty of palm trees offering welcome shade. There was never more than about 12 people on it. The sand is pure white, the sea is crystal clear, and while it’s very shallow with coral lumps to stub your toes on, once you get about 50 metres offshore, the wall drops away into the deep blue. Drifting and snorkelling along this wall we saw sharks, rays, so many varieties of trigger fish, it was great. We particularly enjoyed wandering along this beach at night with torches to watch the armies of crabs scurry away from us. There are literally carpets of them. The hermit crabs are not so quick and seem to huddle together to engage in elaborate shell swapping orgies.

If you desire activities beyond snorkelling and crab harassing, you have to cross over to Thinadhoo. This island is a kilometre away so you must find a boat owner to whizz you across (then pick you up later). Thinadhoo has more tourists and more tourist infrastructure. There are souvenir shops, cafes, guesthouses, one big posh hotel, and a lovely fairly large bikini beach, again with great snorkelling if you have the energy to swim to and from the reef wall. We came over to organise a dive trip, which could actually pick us up the following morning from our island as it passed. We also ate a couple of times on Thinadhoo; once being a specially requested Maldivian spicy fishy feast served up on the beach at sunset while we watched sharks cruising past in the shallows. It was delightful.

The dive trip took us to the eastern edge of Vaavu Atoll, which is the easternmost point of the Maldives. The natural channels that cut through the atolls – clearly visible when flying over the islands – are diving hotspots. Currents rush through from open ocean to lagoon, or vice versa depending on the tides, bringing food, fish and bigger fish. Dives involve rapid descents so the current doesn’t take you away from the dive site then you drift (blast?) along the coral walls, occasionally using a reef hook to watch the sharks and eagle rays patrolling through the vast shoals of colourful fish. Our second dive was on Golden Wall, named after the beautiful bright yellow soft corals that are abundant here. It could be the strongest current I have ever experienced in my 130ish dives as it proved tricky to focus on anything before we shot past and it was soon in the distance. We had dolphins on the way back leaping around the boat.

Getting to know a boat owner on Felidhoo who brought us to and from Thinadhoo proved useful as he took us on a great snorkelling trip. First stop was the small shipwreck just the other side of Keyodhoo, which is an inhabited island on the other side of Felidhoo. This was way better than we expected. The water was like a sheet of glass and as transparent as Bombay Sapphire. The wrecked fishing boat pokes up above the surface upon which the perched white terns eye you suspiciously and crabs scuttle nervously. Below the surface the wreck is in great condition and is alive with parrotfish, angelfish, Moorish idols, sergeant majors, all kinds of pretty little things that now call the wreck home. Then on the sandy bed about 10 metres down a sting ray followed our progress exploring the wreck. The three of us spent a very happy hour or so there until the first tourist boat arrived, soon followed by another (probably tours from Thinadhoo and Fulidhoo), and we left them too it, our peace shattered.

Second stop, and pretty far away, is known as Shark Alley (or Shark Point, or Shark Something-or-other). There were a lot of boats here, which was off-putting, until we jumped into the water and saw all the sharks. There are a lot of nurse sharks that attend everyday to say hello to the multitudes of snorkellers from around the world. I assume some of the boats must feed them to guarantee their presence but even staying away from other boats and people there were still plenty of sharks to swim with. They are around 2-3 metres in length and inquisitive – or hungry thinking that we all have food – thus swim very close. So close that you have to be careful not to kick them especially if you are treading water. It was lovely. But please don’t kick them.

Third stop was a shallow reef known for turtles. We were the only boat and we did find a few turtles as we bounced around in the swell across the top of the reef, which doesn’t quite break the surface. Plenty of other fish and coral life to see as well.



Sixth island: Fulidhoo

The public ferry brought us, three other passengers, and a cool box of covid vaccines, from Felidhoo to Fulidhoo for about US$1. It was a pleasant journey to a very pleasant island. It is something in between Felidhoo and Thinadhoo with more tourist infrastructure than the former but retaining more local life than the latter. As with all the islands in Vaavu Atoll, you can stroll the sandy streets from one end of the island to the other in 5 or 10 minutes (depending on whether you go north-south or east-west). The beaches are not as good on Fulidhoo, with either a manmade bikini beach at the sunrise end where they are constructing an erosion protection breakwater out of massive boulders brought from India, or the sunset bikini beach at the other end separated by a few palm trees from a small but perpetually burning landfill site. They really need to come up with a more sustainable solution for dealing with all the plastic waste in this country. The best beach would be the one by the jetty but it’s where all the boats anchor.

This jetty is probably the highlight of Fulidhoo. Every night it is the place to be to watch sharks and sting rays attracted by the bright floodlights. Or they are probably attracted by whatever smaller stuff is attracted by the bright floodlights. You can while away a lot of time there; much better than TV.

The diving here was pleasantly milder than all of our previous dives. Nothing big and dramatic, but also no strong currents. Just very colourful corals and big swarms of fishes. We did a night dive with UV lights, which was a new experience for me. Many corals fluoresce under UV light, and the fish also look completely different; my favourite spotted wrasse looked like a luminous negative of itself. It was quite other-worldly, though I felt guilty when I sometimes must have dazzled fish as they then swam straight into the reef with a donk.

As always, the snorkelling along the rougher outer north side of the island was incredible. I think the Maldives has undoubtedly the best snorkelling I’ve ever done (in hindsight after more time has passed I might say the same about the diving but I can confidently say it immediately about the snorkelling). Within touching distance of the Fulidhoo shore while swimming parallel to the new boulder breakwater, we saw turtles, sharks, a dense shoal of millions of little silvery things that looked like an oil slick, and even an eagle ray.

It was my birthday while on Fulidhoo and I was rendered speechless to receive a chocolate cake and a song from the family who owned our guesthouse. I assumed Magdalena and Agnieszka had told them about it but they were equally surprised. Actually, the brothers and cousins had noticed the date on my passport when they completed the paperwork for my pre-departure covid test. As I said before and as was confirmed over and over, the Maldivians are really lovely people. If you go to the Maldives, which you very much should, don’t stay on a resort island because you won’t get to meet any.

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Photos

Tiger Shark getting a bit close
There's no zoom on my underwater camera. It was a 4.5 metre shark about 1.5 metres away.

Tiger Shark!
When one of these swims towards you chewing on a big tuna head it can be a little unnerving.

Keyodhoo Wreck - excellent snorkelling spot
Look closely for the underwater bit.

Fuvahmulah fish auction
I felt hypocritically sad here seeing these beautiful fish that I had been watching underwater. But then I did eat them later and they were again beautiful.

The lovely lunch that was cooked for us on Fuvahmulah
There were delicious foods that we didn't see anywhere else.

Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

Sharks
Love the ocean.