Well, we finally made it. We quit our jobs, I rented out my flat, we sold a lot of things and packed up the rest of our lives into storage, and here we are.
First destination, The Maldives. But the Maldives are a collection of several atolls, split further into individual islands. The airport is Hulhule island, just over from the capital (island) Malé. And where we had picked to stay for the first 4 night of our trip was Dharavandhoo, in Baa Atoll to the North West of Malé.
So, we might have set off at 5:45am on Monday, but 2 flights (7 hours to Abu Dhabi and 4 hours to Maldives), 1 ferry (from the airport to Malé), 1 speed boat (3 hours) and a golf buggy later, and we’re finally here: only 30 hours door to door… 😂
The flight was good, not too busy, and we had a row to ourselves. Also managed to sleep a bit. After landing in Malé, we freshened up a little and put some fresh clothes on, before catching the ferry from just outside the terminal over to Malé island.
We landed at about 5am, which was a real shame, as the sun hadn’t risen yet, and so we couldn’t see anything out of the window. Our speed boat was only due to depart at 11:30am, so we had a few hours to explore the island. However, our jetlag was really bad, and our bodies thought it was the middle of the night, the struggle to stay awake was real…
We had a delicious breakfast at Seagull cafe (a beautiful little cafe) and asked if we could leave our bags there to explore the area.
We walked first to the harbour near the fish and vegetable market and tried to spot sting rays at a place on Google maps called “sting ray watching”, but we didn’t see any…
Then we headed to Rasfannu and an artificial beach here, before grabbing a taxi over to the Eastern artificial beach where we were able to find a few good seating areas for some micronaps.
Eventually we walked back to the restaurant, half dead, to grab a coke and wait for the speedboat.
The speedboat was INSANE!! Like a rollercoaster ride basically, bouncing over the waves and slamming into the water so hard! However, miraculously (or perhaps demonstrating just how bad our jetlag was) we both managed to sleep most of the way!
The hotel we booked (Violet Inn) picked us up from the boat in a little golf buggy, and we checked in, had a shower, a little nap, then went out for lunch. We also scoped out the local beaches, including the bikini beach, where the house reef is.
After an early night and LOTS of sleep caught up, our first full day here we decided to spend at the bikini beach, snorkelling in the reef and chilling.
We spotted a couple of super cute baby sharks in the shallows of the beach, but my GoPro footage didn’t come out very well… ☹️ And then snorkelled the house reef. The visibility in the morning was quite good, but by the afternoon got fairly poor, however, we did see A LOT of fish.
Then, just around midday, the guy from the hotel ran over to us on the beach… When we checked in, he said we need to be on “stand-by” for manta rays and whale sharks.
We’d come to Dharavandhoo because of it’s proximity to the UNESCO site Hanifaru Bay. Which is famous for it’s HUGE congregations of manta rays during the summer months from June to Sept. However, it seems they are a little late this year, so we are on standby and as soon as someone informs us that there’s been a sighting, we need to literally run to the jetty and get the boat to see them.
This time, the call was for Whale sharks. So we ran to the jetty and got the boat out to the site where they were last seen. We did see a shark a little, just from the boat. But we didn’t have chance to jump in with it before it swam away and was lost again…
Fingers crossed we get the call again this week!
So far so good, plus we’re both slowly catching up on rest, jetlag and the stress of the last few weeks. We can’t wait to experience the rest of the Maldives!
Travel Alchemist 
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