Maldives

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Swimming with nine sharks

My options for the day Today, I move to Maafushi, an island I visited 8 years ago.  The public ferry leaves at 1615 and I had three options for killing the day: Spend the morning at the beach then the afternoon in the café, Go diving in the morning and then the afternoon in the […]

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Diving and beaching

Today is my third and last full day in Gulhi.  Due to the dive times and opportunities, I had fallen into a routine on all my days here, meaning the last two days and today. The day would begin with an early wake-up around 0630 to 0700, followed by the hotel breakfast which began at […]

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Island-hopping to Gulhi

Background on Maldives tourism A bit of background is useful in order to understand tourism in Maldives and why it used to be so expensive (and still is for some people). It is a very low-lying conservative Islamic country consisting of 1190 small coral islands in 27 atolls.  Its highest point is only 2.4 metres […]

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Rediscovering the capital

First things first With a 3h time difference, I woke early and was out by 0700 for a walk.  My intention was to secure my ticket to Gulhi or work out options if there was no 1500 departure as per the schedule. I confirmed that there was a 1500 departure from the Hulhulmale Ferry Terminal, […]

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Why the Maldives again?

Above: My ride from the airport to Male on the dhoni. Travel begins in earnest It was a very quick 5 night but 4 full days in Kuching.  The time was spent sorting some land title issues, seeing family and going to the gym everyday! Today my travel begins in earnest, flying from Kuching to […]

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Beginning of the end

Today is the beginning of the end when I finish the adventures and relaxation and proceed to Kuching for time with family before flying back to reality in Auckland in less than two weeks.  We had set the alarm for 0600 to catch breakfast at the hotel before getting on the 0730 dhoni to Male. […]

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Dive day

We did two dives during our stay at Maafushi. Most people would probably consider the dives we experienced to be quite good, but I am fortunate that I can access top-class sites like Sipadan relatively easily.  So, the dives we had here were OK.  Diving does depend on luck and exactly which dive site you […]

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Maafushi

Introduction We did two dives at Maafushi (a handy but beautiful island only about 90 minutes from Male). There were three dive operators on the island. Shark Diving & Watersports (which we dived with because they were straight up and no-nonsense). They gave us a discounted price of USD35 per dive including all equipment (without discussing […]

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An affordable and accessible paradise

We were pleased to see our noisy mainland neighbours move out today. Little did we know till the evening that a bigger group of mainlanders were moving in. After breakfast, Kim spent a bit of time catching up with friends on the internet till mid-morning when we walked to the beaches. We walked east past […]

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Our island escape

Despite the 2h time difference, I woke up surprisingly early at 0745. We both wanted a sluggish start and didn’t take breakfast till 0845. In view of our 1500 departure to Maafushi, we opted to stay in till check-out at 1200. I edited photos while Kim read his book. We had lunch at a waterfront […]

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