Sat, May 6: Male, Maldives

Today we arrived in the Maldives. 

The capital, Male (pronounced Mall-ay), is contained wall to wall (or shore to shore) on a relatively small island.  The group today expanded by an additional four shipmates so we were eleven on our tour.  We tendered in to the dock, met our local guide and then headed out on a walking tour of the sights. 

The national museum wasn’t open when we got there, they were renovating it, adding,  among other things, a children’s snow park (no snow in the Maldives).  We walked to the largest mosque on the islands.  The Maldivians are almost 100% Muslims.  

We could look in but couldn’t go into the prayer hall.

Then it was off past the presidential residence

and a memorial...

to the oldest Mosque (that had a tin roof),

and its cemetery.

There was also a parking lot only for motor cycles.

Then we took short walk to the produce market…

and then we were done.  It took about a half hour total.  Not much tourist stuff to see in the capital. 

While waiting for our boat ride Tara headed out to find ice cream for everyone (at 10:00am…it was hot).  Our boat arrived just after we had all finished our ice cream. 

The boat took us out to a submarine…

where we got to take a dive down to about 110 feet to the reef...where we actually got very close to the reef.  We saw looooottts of fish…so of course we took a million pictures in hopes of getting a few that were half way decent.  Surprisingly we got some pretty good pictures.

Upon our return we caught another boat that took us out to a resort. Other than Male all of the rest of the Maldives consists of small atolls that are generally one resort per island.  In our case we ended up at the Araadan Prestige Vadoo resort.  This was another case where Tara contacted good friends who used to manage resorts in the Maldives and managed to get us into a resort with no restrictions.  We could use the pool, beach chairs, beach, restaurant, etc., without restrictions. 

Upon arrival the host took us to an enclosed pavilion where we were given iced cold fruit tea and then we got a tour of the very small resort. 

The main island takes only about 10 minutes to walk around. Mary particularly enjoyed the lovely tropical gardens.

All of the rooms (50) are bungalows out in the water and reached by boardwalks.  After a quick tour we all headed to the restaurant for lunch and then to the beach for a dip...

and snorkeling in the crystal clear waters. 

Rooms at the resort go for $1000 to $1500 per night.  Facilities were beautiful, location was exquisite and we got to enjoy it all without spending and arm and a leg on an overnight stay. 

We made it back to the ships tender with plenty of time to spare.  We did notice that the ship was a bit smoky...too many green house gases here.

Paul headed to the room and Mary walked a while on the deck and caught a beautiful sunset over the Maldives.  Great end to a brief stay in Paradise.

We had a leisurely dinner in the café with Tara and headed back to the room to work on pictures and then to bed.