Maldives 2017

Maldives February / March 2017
This is Page 1. If you'd like to go to Page 2, please click here. If you'd like to go to Page 3, please click here. A 10 hour overnight flight and we arrived safe and sound at Male airport to be met by a boat from the Bandos Hotel where we were made very welcome. It was a lot breezier than I expected and but the palms, white sand and turquoise sea were picture perfect. Our room for the first couple of nights was very comfortable with a large bed, 3 piece suite and full bathroom with separate (large) shower.
This is our home for a couple of days and this is the view. I can probably put up with it!!
		Could you ever tire of looking at lush vegetation and crystal clear, turquoise sea? Doubt it!
To give you an idea of how tall the trees are - Jonathon looks tiny in comparison.
		Not sure which yacht this is or who owns it but it's very sleek.
There were areas of garden here and there but it must be a nightmare to keep things growing with so much sand around.
		You can see how windy it gets from the shape of the tree opposite. The tree above (and others) had these interesting shapes / bits on its bark - no idea what it is / they are.
Trees are so interesting. The one on the right seems to be propping itself up.
		There were places to sit if you wanted peace and quiet (and didn't mind getting splashed occasionally).
Not sure how this tree stays standing with its roots on show like this.
We saw our first wildlife for the holiday today - a few geckos / lizards and a bird or two. I couldn't get over how long the geckos' tails were.		Mynah Bird
Crimson Rosetta		There weren't many flowering plants in bloom but those that were made up for it.

With being able to walk all around the island in a relatively short time we could take advantage of the sunset even though we were based at the eastern end of the atoll. We spent a very pleasant hour (or two) watching the sun go down whilst enjoying milk shakes and snacks.
As the sun went down, the cafe was lit up with these lovely globe lights - very pretty.
Have to make sure I don't waste any yummy milkshake!
The end of a lovely first day.
	Day 2 was a very lazy day. Imagine this is my chair - the view on the left was to my left, the view on the right was to my right. Very pretty.
If the lounger got too much I could always move to here (nowhere near as comfy as it looks!)
There were a lot of these Ghost Crabs on the rocks on the beach. It was good to see them jumping from one rock to another (when they weren't scuttling around as you would expect crabs to do).		Day 3 and time to join the boat - The MV Ari Queen - and meet our two guides, Chas Anderson and Sara Frost, fellow Nature Trek travellers and crew members. We were taken from the hotel to the boat by the dhoni, a local wooden boat that also served as our transport when snorkelling etc.
The boat was moored close to Male, the capital. It was a lot more built up that the Bandos Island - glad we weren't staying there!

Our first marine wildlife sighting was Indo-Pacific Bottlenose Dolphin. These two photos are of two males and one female mating. Apparently it's quite unusual to see this activity.		This is far more normal - just cruising along.

		Having reached our destination for the night (Gulhi) we went snorkelling. The powder blue surgeon fish was the prettiest species we saw. Chas gave us a talk about the Maldives and dolphins then dinner, fish identification and bed.
Sunday was a travelling day and, disappointly, short of wildlife but we did see a few birds - Noddys, Saunders Terns and Little Terns. There aren't many birds in The Maldives and Sara advised that this is because there's nowhere for them to roost.
Whilst Jonathon and others were snorkelling I thought I'd share a few photos of our home for this part of the holiday, the MV Ari Queen. There were 13 guests, 2 guides and goodness knows how many crew so we were well looked after and there was plenty of space on board.	Sitting area	Guardian of the bar
The business end of things	Dining room	For Norbert
You can see how cloudy it was but, thankfully, the wind wasn't as strong.
This is the "tender" - aka the dhoni - that ferried us to and fro - a typical local boat.
Jonathon reported back that there was much more fish variety and prettier colours this time - better snorkelling altogether. He seems to be getting the hang of his underwater camera.	Crown of Thorns Starfish	Forster's or Blacksided Hawkfish
Sea Cucumber It rained (and thundered and lightened!) while we had another talk from Chas and tea. We hoped that would clear the air and lead to sunnier, bluer, less windy days from here on in.	Not a very spectacular sunset at Faafu Atoll but it still lit up the sea nicely.
		Monday started off with an island walk on Minimascali. I would have been able to take more photos had I not accidentally introduced my camera to the sea within a few minutes of getting there (oops!) so you'll just have to take my word that we saw a Feather-Tailed Stingray amongst several other things.
		The boat waited patiently while we also had a snorkel.
	Clark's Anemonefish	Clown Triggerfish
Longbarbel Goatfish	Crown Squirrelfish	Brown-blotched Sandperch
Yellow-bar Parrotfish	Stinging Anemone	Starfish
One of our tour guides - Sara.	Powder-blue Surgeonfish, Six-barred Wrasse and others.	Back on board and breakfasted, the first sighting of the day was a pod of Common Bottlenose Dolphin.

Jonathon looking for wildlife!	Flying Fish - amazing little creatures.	The highlight of the morning was a pod of Short-finned Pilot Whales. Mum and Calf Pilot Whales

I think the Pilot Whale on the right was as interested in us as we were in him (or perhaps he was just wondering where his friends had gone as most of them had deep dived at this stage).		Always nice to get a fluke. Double nice to get a double fluke.

They promised me sunshine and blue skies in the Maldives. That would have been good. We'd had grey and overcast up to this point. Less likely to get burnt to a frazzle perhaps but not quite as pretty! The little boat is the alternate tender for the Ari Queen (and the one we used to go to the island that morning).
Lunch time came along and with it an exhausted Watercock. Far from home, she was clearly disorientated. Once the humans were in the dining room (and therefore away from the back deck) she landed and Jonathon helped to shepherd her into a corner on the boat so the crew could put her in a box and let her rest before releasing her near an island. Hope she survives. We saw a few birds on that day - some were photographed and some just admired as too far away / too fast to capture.
Watercock	Great Crested Tern	Great Crested Tern
The treat of the afternoon was seeing a pod of Spinner Dolphins.		There were one or two spins but I was far too engrossed in watching them to remember to take a photo!

It did get a bit brighter in the afternoon so the sea was a prettier colour. No idea what happened with Jonathon's underwater camera for the afternoon snorkel but it seems to have gone on strike so no fish or coral pictures from that.
		There was even enough sun for a sunset and that brought us to the end of a very interesting day. We were anchored at Dhaalu Atoll for this evening. Please click here to move to Page 2 for the next few days of our holiday.
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