Above:  Chained birds near Maafushi’s port area.  After a relaxing day yesterday of chilling and swimming, it was time for me to do some diving before leaving tomorrow. I had booked to dive with Arena Dive Club who offered the best rates of USD40 per dive and USD10 for all equipment per dive, plus a […]

Above:  In front of Maafushi’s prison.  Because the prison offered employment to locals, they had capital to start guest houses and hotels when the tourism industry was liberalised in 2009. Today, we have a fifteen-minute ferry ride at 1615 from Gulhi to Maafushi, as we move our base over for the next three days. We […]

Having rested well yesterday, we took a full-day excursion today.  Having done this excursion before last year, I tried looking for others but this was the best value one.  Shorter excursions cost only a little less. We met the group, consisting of two others, at 0920 and set off on the boat at 1000.  The young guide […]

Today was Boo’s first full day in Maldives.  As he’s still gainfully and sometimes stressfully employed, we took it easy with a morning swim and an afternoon one.  We skipped lunch and had junk food in bed in between the two swims. We organised our excursion for tomorrow and took little walks.  In the evening, […]

Flying to Male I had set the alarm for 0445 but woke at 0230, having had around 5h30 of sleep.  I lay down for a bit longer but hopped out of bed around 0420 and prepared for check-out. I managed to get on the first train to the airport at 0500 rather than the third […]

Leaving Maafushi for the airport Today I say bye-bye to paradise.  I’m very brown already so I decided to spend the morning indoors attending to things like tax, admin and video-calling a friend whom I may travel around Saudi with in December. Check-out was at 1200, which was perfect for the public ferry to Male […]