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The Maldive Islands in the Indian Ocean -June 1, 2001
Position: The Maldive Islands in the Indian Ocean -June 1, 2001 We finally arrived in The Maldives early AM. After 8 days of bouncing around the Indian Ocean motor sailing from Phuket, just to put down an anchor was a quiet relief. We couldn't leave the boat until customs, immigration and security cleared us so everyone was busy as bees getting the salt off of SeaQuell and all things back in order for an enjoyable few days. We are located southwest of India and west of Sri Lanka on a beautiful string of 1190 low-lying islands (4 feet above sea level) within 27 main atolls. These islands are scattered approximately 800 miles north and south of the equator in the Indian Ocean and the water of the lagoons surrounding the islands is crystal clear, warm and azure blue. The islands have fine white sand and palm fringed beaches. A simply magnificent sight!! There are 80 plus self-contained resorts many with the comforts of 4 and 5 star hotels. This is a well-kept secret hideaway we are happy to discover for ourselves. The capital city of Male has completely built to covers all the available space on this small island. They are continuing to build larger and taller buildings to accommodate the growing resort and fishing industries. This is a very busy small port with local boats servicing the outer islands and resorts. The ferry terminal is filled with water taxies and resort boats constantly moving trying to find space to load and unload. The very busy International airport is on an adjacent islands and available only by boat. Since most of the resorts are on outlying islands, seaplanes (twin otter) are also in the constant taxi and sightseeing business. The government has kept control over the tourism and that is a very wise move. Due to the size of our boat we could only get a permit for two atolls for two weeks. With the many reefs and unmarked waters on the charts we found it best to leave the boat anchored and use the local water taxis, air service, or our tender to reach the outlying places of interest. One of our two trips was to an outlying resort, Rihivilla, by speedboat with a stop on the way to snorkel at an uninhabited island of sand. It was a charming older resort with only sand floors and walkways all swept clean of debris. They advertise it as a shoeless resort. We were served a seafood lunch at the resort and spent a few hours on the beautiful sand beach and warm lagoon. The second trip was by seaplane making two stops on uninhabited islands. The plane backed up to the beach to unload us at a small treed sandbar island. There was a reef circling the island to snorkel around. The second stop was to a bit larger island with mangrove type trees growing in the sand like a forest. A barbecue was planned for our lunch of fresh lobster, sweet and sour and baked fish with all the trimmings at tables set in the shade under and around the knees of the mangrove trees. It was delicious! Another perfect spot to spend an afternoon on the soft white coral sand beach with a swim in the clear blue warm lagoon. The seaplane returned us to the beach of Club Med resort near SeaQuell. The warming waters caused by the El Nino have killed much of the coral in the tropical waters. Some of the snorkeling and diving have been disappointing due to the loss of color in the dead coral, but there are signs of the reefs rebuilding with small patches of color. We see all the beautiful photos of the colorful coal reefs taken before the El Nino and hope it will return in time. This reef destruction is world wide and not just here in The Maldives. There has been an abundance of sea life, with many large and small colorful fish, turtles, seas cucumbers, clams etc. living on the reefs. Maldives does not allow netting of fish, only line fishing, so there seems to be plenty of fish available for local use and to ship to the outlying islands. The fish market is full each afternoon as the boats come into shore laden with many varieties. There are numerous deluxe resorts, each on its own island, within 150
miles of Male' making this an ideal location for a vacation retreat.
Currently it is off-season and resorts are only 25% filled. This made
it nice for us to use the many facilities of the nearby |
