Day 17 24 February
We managed to get to breakfast by around 9:30, so nice to take our time.
After breakfast we walked to the dive shop and pick-up our snorkelling gear, then walked back to our villa to relax.
Around 10:30 I hit the water, and went snorkelling out from our villa. There were so many fish, Needle fish, Unicornfish, Trevally, Parrotfish, Wrasse, Batfish, Surgeonfish, and lots more, so colourful and unafraid of people. I then swam to the seagrass area between jetties 1 and 2. I saw a 1.5m Black Tip Reef Shark, loads of fish again, maybe not the variety as in front of our villa, and 2 Green Sea Turtles – one under a meter and the other well over a meter in length, and two rays – an Eagle Ray and another round headed Stingray that had a deformed or injured tail, or should I say lack of tail, just a couple of fleshy bits where the tail would be. (It could have been a Cowtail Stingray that had lost its tail). Different you may well say.
We both spent the afternoon relaxing. At around 6:45pm went put on our supplied Feyli (look it up ) and went to Sip Sip Beach for the Management Cocktail Party. We both had a Basil Zest cocktail, watched the sunset and then headed to dinner. We sat out on a jetty for dinner, surrounded by water, we got the last part of the sunset, then as it got darker, we had a million stars above us.
Day 18 25 February
Another good sleep in, we got to breakfast sometime after 9:30 and by the time we left they were well into packing it all away and getting ready for lunch. I had pancakes this morning, nothing fancy about that I can hear you thinking. However, the chef had other ideas, my pancakes both looked like coral reef fish, others I saw him make were in the shape of sharks, turtles and dolphins. Very fancy, and tasty.
We saw a pod of dolphins’ swim past our villa at about 1pm, they were a fair way out to sea, but luckily we had our binoculars with us and could see them playing as they passed us.
We had another very relaxing day, played a game of chess and another of draughts. Its been too long since we had both played.
I went for another swim / snorkel in the afternoon. The first highlight was finding a small green turtle. It had just come towards the surface for a breath then took a dive straight down and started feeding on the very plump seaweed on the seabed. I watched it for quite a while. It’s always fascinating watching wildlife do their day to day normal things, while they totally ignore your presence. It must have been feeding time, all the parrot fish were hard at work digging around in the sand before spitting big sand clouds out, I presume the effort was worth it. Most of the other fish were grazing on various types of seaweed and grasses, each to their own taste. I saw another large Green Sea Turtle a little later on, it too was coming to the surface for a breath. I swam with it for a while but then it got tired of me and darted off. Visibility was down below 10m in the afternoon, it seems the morning is the best time for visibility, before the winds/light breezes pick up.
We cracked a bottle of bubbles late afternoon for a pre-dinner sip. I know, doing it tough in the Maldives, but someone has to!!! And as the sun starts to set behind a tropical island just near us, the blue skies are taking on a slight pink hue, I think that’s where I will leave you all for the day.
Day 19 26 February
Oooops, another late breakfast, got there around 9:30 and by the time we finished/left it was about 10:45am, what you might call a leisurely breakfast/brunch. This morning we discovered the cheese, meats Mediterranean selection part of the breakfast offering hidden away in the wine “cellar”. It was so good, all that fresh milk cheese we can’t get at home, none of this pasteurisation process in this cheese making, just whole milk straight from the cow, goat or whatever! So much flavour, yummmm. And then there was Spanish jamon, and other similar meats, marinated olives and all the other tasty things.
Late in the morning we both went out for a snorkel, it was lots of fun having Deb come along. We saw a fish rolling a coral ball around and biting big chunks of the coral off as it found bits of food in it. There were other fish feeding vertically with their mouths buried in the sand/sea grass. There wasn’t the number of fish out there that I had seen in the days before, but it was still fun.
Around 2:30, towards the end of the hottest part of the day this crazy guy decided to have a ride around the island. I don’t think I have mentioned this before, but with our villa comes a couple of bicycles with personalised “number plates”, our read GB & DF. It makes it easier to identify your bike in the various bike parking areas. It’s almost imperative to have a bike for most villas a y further away from the restaurants than us. It’s a long walk, especially in the heat of the day.
Any way I got distracted, I rode around the island, and out to the end of each of the 3 piers. The views are very different from each of the piers, from the end of pier C you can see waves breaking onto the reef, some looked ok for surfing. I discovered the resorts recycling centre and chicken coop, there were many newly born chicks running around. It was a fun ride, and to finish I went and got us both a chocolate ice-cream in a cone. Yes, I know back to our villa, it was 31C ( but felt like 37), and it was a few minutes walk and a few minutes bike ride, I did say I was crazy!! Any way I made it back with a couple of very runny ice-creams, and most importantly, Deb loved it. I even managed not to get ice-cream all over myself. Winning all the way!
We watched a seaplane come in for a landing/splashdown, they look so smooth coming in and once the pontoons hit the water they slow down and come to a stop pretty quickly.
There was a slight breeze all day, so the water has been a little bumpy, it takes away a bit from that “perfect” imagery you sea of crystal clear water with sandy patches and light blue water.
Day 20 27 February
Ok, I’ll call it what it really is, we had an early Brunch at about 9:40am. We called into the wine cellar on our, no not to get wine for brunch! , but rather get a selection of delectable cheeses and preserved meats for part of our Brunch.
WE then made our way to a comfortable table upstairs with view out east over the water. Brunch was delicious, again. We watched people snorkelling, boats going here and there, a sea plane take-off, and a large private cruiser sail past. We finished up and left approaching 11am.
I went for a bike ride around the Island, trying to do an Ingress mission I had managed to get approved since we arrived. But two portals couldn’t be reached on wifi, so I amended the mission, deleting them, I hope that works.
Another quiet afternoon, we started to think about leaving here tomorrow! We have done the Malaysian immigration things on-line, now really just have to pack, remembering the 5kg hand luggage limit for the float plane.
I went for my last snorkelling swim in the afternoon, I’m so glad I did. I went out between piers A & B, and it wasn’t long before I saw a small turtle to my left, I scanned to my right and there were two more turtles. Wow, three turtles swimming around me, I watched all three for a while, two were feeding on the sea grasses. Finally they began to move away from me so I picked one and swam next to it, with about a 3m gap. I guess I followed it for a couple of minutes, then let it go on its way. So graceful and calm. I kept swimming around and saw a stingray just as it settled onto the sea bed, it used its fins/flaps to kick up a whole lot of sand and then allowed it to settle back down all over it. I thought it might be lying in wait for an unsuspecting fish or something. But no, fish seemed to swim right up near its mouth and nothing happened, so I guess it was just resting. Really interesting to watch. I also saw a small, less than a meter, Black Tip Reef Shark. It wasn’t at all interested in me and swam away fairly quickly. Almost as soon as it left I saw another turtle, I’m not sure if it was one of the three I saw earlier, but it didn’t hang around. I started to swim back to our villa, just looking at all the fish, sea cucumbers and things. About 40m from the pier I saw another turtle swim by me. Wow, so I either saw 3, 4 or 5 turtles, I was very happy either way. What a great last snorkel session.
I don’t appear to have told you about a couple of quirky things in our villa. We have an all glass bath, that is set in an opening in the floor, so you can see the waters below while you enjoy a bath, the sand fish, sea grasses, and they can see you! Lol We also have a toilet with a view. Strategically placed just in front of the toilet is a glass panel in the floor, so when you’re sitting there contemplating all the things you can watch the sea type world pass before you, fish of all types, crabs and the water lapping around. I think we will both miss that view.
Late in the afternoon I went on my last bike ride and took our snorkel gear back. And yes,I did another chocolate ice-cream run, I think I did a slightly better effort that yesterday, this time I wrapped a napkin around the cones to catch the drips. I got back with the ice-cream sitting into the cones and looking very shiny (melted). But they tasted good and Deb was happy.
We had the Special Asian Street Market buffet for dinner, it was delicious, and we got to try some Maldivian foods, it was very good.
And that ends our last full day in the Maldives, tomorrow we head to Langkawi, Malaysia.
#retiredlyf done our way.
Catch our photo blog here:
https://www.facebook.com/Greganddebstravelblog?mibextid=ZbWKwL
