I thought the Fantasy Island airport experience in Thailand’s Ko Samui was unbeatable. But, it is pretty cool to land on a runway that is exactly the size of a thin island. The most beautiful blue green water surrounded the plane and outside the airport is just a series of boat docks. So far, the Republic of Maldives is the coolest place ever!
I took a ferry over to Male, the main city in the Maldives where over 70,000 people live on a 2 by 1 kilometer island, in search of some dive gear. After an unproductive attempt to rent equipment, I boarded another small boat headed to the Nautilus One dive safari boat, my home for the next week. The boat was gorgeous and they had “all what I would need for diving” on board. I looked around and saw 10 cute Dutch guys and thought – yes you do! We hit the water for a check exactly 18 minutes after I climbed on board and we were off on an action packed dive safari!
In addition to the Dutch guys (26 – 40 years old), who knew each other from a university group like a fraternity, there was a really nice German couple, Tom and Heike, on board. Tom made his 200th dive on the trip and they shared all sorts of interesting food and drink they had smuggled into the Maldives. Our fearless leader, Gunter, is an adorable 23 year old Austrian dive guide who took us to the best dive sights around the Maldives, and he plays a mean game of cards.
We fell into an easy routine of getting up and in the water for the first dive at 6:45am (well most of it was easy), back for a big breakfast and relaxing until the next dive at about 11:30. Lunch was up next and more sun, reading and sleeping until the 3:30pm dive. That left time for watching a beautiful sunset, happy hour, dinner and cards until we fell into bed. I could get used to this!
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