1. On the Horizon of the Maldives with the dancing mantas!

Very brief patch of WiFi to upload the adventures so far ….

Not only did I make it all the way from my house to Heathrow and to the Maldives, with a quick couple of hours in Abu Dhabi airport stopover, but bag did too! It’s at the point now where my bag arriving on the carousel at my final destination isn’t expected, it’s an actual treat that I didn’t really expect! Nearly had a disaster when I headed towards what I thought was a picture of coffee beans in Abu Dhabi airport (in search of proper tea obvs) and found it to be a lingerie shop but we eventually located suitable refreshment options.

Darren and I made it to beach front hotel that we’d booked rooms in for the night prior to meeting the boat for our trip. My sea view room allowed me to people watch and confirm that the as a public beach in the Maldives, it is very much not what they’d call a ‘bikini beach’. Woman are very much covered in shorts and T-shirt at the very least but mostly full neck to ankle coverings. The people have so far been very nice and eager to help. They address their questions and responses to Darren, making sure I know its hi they’re talking to by finishing every question with ‘sir’. I just smile blandly and listen like the good little woman I am. We had a delicious dinner (didn’t quite make it in time for the afternoon tea Maldives style!) on a roof top bar next door on our first night and we’re ready for our trip!

*****

Onto the boat! A couple of hiccups to begin, including a broken anchor winch so we got stuck in the harbour for a few hours. But it was ok because a very serious looking man arrived with a large bag of tools. All the other boat boys, engineers and guides stood about the anchor hatch and supervised and, fortunately, the issue was quickly fixed and we got underway. Away from the overbuild, ugly city and out to cruising around the lure,t paradise found islands. Our first dive was straight into massive and curious sting rays and the first couple of days since then have not disappointed - there have been sharks, rays, pretties, some fairly quick current and a couple of times for hooking onto the reef as the current streams buy, the big fish cruise about feeding and we fly like flags and watch it all!

And then the night dive… first we anchored up in a lagoon Athena we waited for sunset and darkness and turned the boat lights on … then we waited. The stage was set with torches standing in the ground 12m below the boat to make the arena and attract the all important plankton …..

First came a little family of nurse sharks to welcome us…then came the mantas …. And once they’d all settled in to their feeding - which takes the shape of swimming, with mouths open and feeding fins spread to funnel the food, swimming towards the light and barrel rolling (doing back summersaults) as they got to the surface. Sharks and mantis there, so in we went; descended to the 12 m, knelt in the sand, torches aloft and spent a happy hour with 5 mantas swooping over and around us! Magic. The next day, we relocated to their cleaning station - a large pinnacle that the little cleaning fish gather and the mantas cruise around getting clean.

What a magical time … here’s what it looked like!