Nalahiya Hotel Male

... free beverages. The three free daily meals were served buffet-style and were generally good tasting and seemed made from fairly fresh ingredients. Other than eat, swim, snorkel, surf, read, and occasionally canoe, we didn't do much for the next 7 days. Our room's air conditioner konked out fairly often and eventually we were moved to a different room. We had some trouble getting fresh linens and soap, but since we were ...

... i vinden och blommor i alla möjliga färger växte överallt på ön. Skimrande turkost hav, klarblå himmel och vyer som fick oss att kippa efter andan. Första natten fick vi sova på en båt eftersom det inte fanns något rum ledigt än. Som kompensation fick vi en heldagsdagsutflykt till tre andra öar en annan dag. När kvällen kom somnade vi ovaggade med näsan ut genom ett fönster och vinden smått fläktande i ansiktet. När jag slog upp ögonen morgonen därpå hade jag världens ...

... and racoons... The Diving: Having gotten our PADI certification pretty much exactly a year ago and not having gone since, we were both kind of nervous before our first dive. We were significantly calmed by the local dive shop staff though - and it helped Nandita that the dive instructur was a rather cute Frenchman (didn't know she had a weak spot for them...). After an initial orientation dive in the ...

... amp; really helped us both. We particuarly loved the wreck dive, it was awesome, we went to the Kudhima Wreck, a purposefully sunk ship from a few years ago - the marine ...

... echoes (boat and buoy marking the end of the net). An anxious night, pitch black as the moon didn't rise until 5am, but OK then at 10 am we saw 3 large wooden boats full of people altering course to cross our track. We continued sailing, and they turned out to be a type of India/Yemen ferry, everyone waving, Next night Pathfinder confirmed more floating nets, and we spotted 2 pairs of echoes, (nets?) diverted round them, but as we did so under full sail heard an eerie ...

... loving and they want to connect. I just checked my email and he already wrote a hello Lanah email, let me know how your sailing goes and said he is excited to have had made a new friend from a new country. So cool. Initially, I was bummed to be stuck in Male, but honestly, it has been a great quick glimpse into the friendliness of the Maldivian people. And, I made some new friends. I reckon the vast majority of tourists never engage with the locals as they are away at resorts. And ...

In Male we spent only 3 hours, but it was enough to see the entire island. The fish market was great! For a week we staid at Sun Island. Maldives is nothing short from paradise. Snorkeling was so much fun (until we really burned!). The beaches, the water, and absence of people and ...

... Jesse to see the sharks as close up as possible but how close I'm not sure! So our time here has been wonderful. The kids and I listed a number of things that we will miss about Maldives - interesting since we did this after three weeks here but in the reverse - what we missed about home. It's been good for all of us. Doug and I talked about lessons learned - how we could approach it differently again. Once you are in a place for a couple of months you know ...

... testing or ginger here) to combat that problem. And - research the distance myself and prepare myself and the kids accordingly. We went to Paradise Island Resort the day after the Red Cross expedition so I wasn't 100% but did okay. It was windy and rough so snorkelling was a little more difficult. We experienced the first "cool" pool in Maldives. It is usually hard to get refreshed by jumping in the pools since they normally feel like a tepid bath. We watched the sharks swimming ...

... that I didn't know was so deeply engrained into my inner consciousness. But the cars, oh the cars... the environmentalist in me sees this island as having had the potential to be the perfect environmental utopia... 2kmx1km it could have been the most perfect town to develop into a pedestrian only capital city. I believe it is faster to walk somewhere than it can be to drive. Everything is so close, and yet the island is packed with cars. It ...