Best of the Maldives: Reading – Kurumba

Kurumba - book and magasine

International Book Day yesterday. Unfortunately, in this digital age, books are getting to be an ever rarer commodity. But nothing says switch off from the modern world than curling up on a hammock under some palm trees with a good book.

I haven’t seen many resort specific books in my travels. So many books are dominated by pretty pictures of paradise and thinly veiled promotion. But Kurumba’s “The Kurumba Story” has lots of substance about the history and day to day life on the resort island. Most people think that you have to go to a “local island” for a “local” ife, but the resorts themselves are their own significant communities in the Maldives landscape with their own stories and characters.

The book looks back in time over 40 years of Kurumba’s life as a resort chronicling the emergence of this tiny island nation into one of the world’s most coveted tourist destination. It complements the story with an extensive collection of rare and intriguing photos of this vibrant period.

And for some lighter reading, Kurumba also publishes its own Kurumba magazine which again I applaud for focusing more of the intriguing accounts of life in this fascinating part of the world than it does on promoting the resort itself. Their latest issue includes the following articles…

  • “Casting Calls” – Examination of the difference between hand line, big game and other types of fishing, traditional and modern.
  • “The Tree of Life” – Peon to the eponymous Coconut tree.
  • “Raising the Bar” – Staff profile of one of our favourite people on the island, Hillary.
  • “Loyal Friends” – Guest profile of a family that have visited Kurumba 72 times (!)
  • “Above & Below” – Staff profile of Momo (who did our great manta videoing)  

 

Kurumba - book

Best of the Maldives: Octopus – Jumeirah Dhevanafushi

Jumeirah Dhevanafushi - octopus spot

Probably the most elusive of the Snorkel Safari Big 5 to bag is the master disguise, the Octopus. My wife’s and my favourite sightings are octopus. We had spotted several on our dives, but hadn’t seen one on a resort house reef for over a decade when we one played hide-and-seek with us in the shallow lagoon of Coco Palm Dhuni Kolhu. So we were a bit sceptical when the Jumeirah Dhevanafushi staff were boasting about their ‘resident’ octopus. But they didn’t just say that some octopus could be regularly sighted around the island. They insisted that he could be reliably found at his favourite hovel just under the spa jetty (see photo). Mind you, don’t think you can just walk on the jetty and hope to see him. When we went looking for him on our snorkel outing, we swam right over him without seeing him. It wasn’t until we had turned around that we saw him peeking out of his rocky crevice.

And like the song, thanks to the jetty, his “garden” is indeed “in the shade”!