Maldives - Day 2

(Note to reader, these are a bit late as my motivation for typing is about zero)

Olga and I woke up around 7:00am and trundled across the Island to grab some breakfast.  Breakfast is served near the main pool in an open restaurant directly along the shoreline.  We grabbed a table next to the sea and attacked the buffet like we had a tip on a famine.  

Breakfast

After breakfast, we went back to the villa where I gathered my diving gear, bid the wife good-bye and set out for the dive center.  My appointment was not until 9:00am, but I thought I would get there a few minutes early to make sure I had everything I needed. I was a little anxious, a little excited, but mostly curious on what the morning would produce.  

My instructor is Lilli.  Originally from China, she has been at the resort since January.  Pleasant enough, she set about to teach me the finer points of diving.  We learned the equipment, what it does and how to put it on.  With that short briefing, we were suited up and off to the water.  

Lilli helping me with my equipment

Let me just insert here that although divers look graceful in the water, the equipment actually weighs quite a lot on land and the walk to the water across the sand was looked easier from the comfort of the dive center.  Also, a wet suit is great for keeping the chill away in the water, but, again, on land and in 90-degree heat, it makes for a very hot walk.  I have never been so happy to be submerged in a body of water.  

Drinking my last water before the plunge

Instructor and student ready for the water

The long walk to the sea!

Thanks to having completed all the theoretical work beforehand and having a private instructor, we blew through the exercises in record time.  The only evolution about which I was nervous was the removal of my mask and opening my eyes underwater. I have never actually done this in a pool, let alone the ocean, so I was bit nervous.  When the time came, I cowboy'd up and completed the task.  Interestingly, opening your eyes in salt water is not too bad … that is until you put your mask on again and reopen your eyes. Apparently it is not the salt water which burns your eyes, but air mixed with saltwater that really stings.  Anyway, with enough exercises passed, we set out on our first dive on the local reef.

The islands in the Maldives are all basically the same.   A clump of sand surrounded by a reef which then drops off to create a huge wall under the surface.  Up to this point, we had been in roughly 5 meters (16 feet) of water, but as we swam over the end of the wall, the ocean floor dropped straight down to about 40 meters (130 feet).  This was a bit daunting, but Lilli had already begun descending, so what choice did I have.  Descending, mind you, is easier written than done.  Every meter you go down, the pressure increases and your ears begin to block – like at high altitudes.  You must go down slowly and remember to clear your ears frequently or it can cause serious ear issues.  Not hard to do when you are standing still at the top of a mountain, but the exercise of clearing your ears gets a tad trickier when you are floating by a large drop-off in the middle of the ocean.  I eventually got the hang of it, descending to about 10 meters (32 feet) and began my first real dive.

We swam the wall of the reef for about 30 minutes and it was awesome.  First of all, you are completely surrounded by hundreds of fish.  Big fish, small fish – all types colors and variants.  We saw huge Groupers that were around 4 feet long and small Indian Ocean Lobsters hiding in their hideouts.  There were little blue fish that swam like tiny manta rays and large dark fish that were none to happy to see us.  The highlight of the dive was seeing a Morey Eel, although he made it clear we were not the highlight of his day.  It was all over too soon, but rules are rules and soon we were back on the beach.

The triumphant return!

I dismantled all my equipment (part of the certification), dried off and trundled over to meet Olga at the main pool.  She had been there for a few hours and had secured a one of the bed-swings that hung over the pool water under a Maldivian hut.  It was comfortable, cool and out of the relentless sun.  We ordered some lunch and within about 6 minutes of the last bite, I was out cold! 

Does it get any better than that?
Seriously?

I spent the remainder of the first day floating in and out of one long nap on my swinging bed enjoying the sounds of the ocean rolling up on the beach just feet from me. Every now and again, I would get warm, roll off the bed, splash around and climb back in for another 40-minute nap.  Now that’s living!

That evening, we walked across the island, a 20-minute walk, and had dinner in their overwater restaurant "complex".  The have 3 restaurants, Sea, an underwater restaurant, Salt, an Asian restaurant and Fire, a Japanese restaurant, as well as a bar with rocking chairs outside in which to relax and have your evening cocktails and snacks.   Sea and Fire, we were told, require reservations well in advance, so we had a nice meal next to the ocean at Salt.

The spa is the left and the restaurant complex is on the right
The thatched roof on the left of the complex is Salt and Fire is the tall structure on the right
The bar is the two tiered structure in the forefront of the complex

The restaurant is spread out both under a huge wall-less grass hut with a 40-foot ceiling and on the open-air deck over the ocean.  We choose the outside seating over the ocean. The restaurant is called Salt as they have many different types of salt that they recommend to bring out the flavor in the food. The catch is that since you have been in the salt air and salt water all day, you are already bloated like a beached whale, so added anymore salt into your system seems a bit redundant.  Overall, though, the food was excellent.  

One last note about the restaurants on the island.  There are about 130 villas, beach and overwater combined and they have 5 restaurants, each with a different theme. I addition to the 3 mentioned above, there is also an Italian restaurant and a buffet style place.  This is great, because you never feel crowded, but the downside is that since you are on an island and a run to the Kwicki-Mart for a burrito is out of the question, they have jacked the prices in these eating establishments to extortionate levels.  I suppose someone has to pay for the logistics costs of getting the food to an island.  

As the first full day came to a close, we returned to the villa and despite spending the majority of the day asleep, went immediately to bed. I guess napping really does take a lot of energy!