Best of the Maldives: Longest Day – Nika

In the Maldives, one can simply lose track of time. Not just because of indolent indifference. But also because it varies from resort to resort. Many resorts follow “resort time” which is an hour ahead of Male time. There is no geographical reason since the entire country is aligned longitudinally from north to south. It is sort of like a permanent “Daylight Savings Time” or “British Summer Time” (which officially ended today).

The whole concept behind daylight savings time was to provide more daylight hours in the still active part of the later afternoon and early evening. Certainly a great way to stretch your days and activities in the Maldives. One can say that time simply doesn’t matter in this remote paradise, but people still tend to be guided by the benchmarks of daily clock times for their rituals like dining and settling down.

Being so close to the equator, the sunrise and sunset times do not vary much through the year. The sun rises and sets around 6:00 (am and pm) every day varying a matter of minutes through the year. But for the resorts, this means a 7:00 am sunrise (don’t have to get up quite so early for sunrise yoga) and 7:00 pm sunset (so you can carry on your activities later before it truly becomes the dinner hour.

The resort Nika has literally doubled down on this concept setting their resort’s time to 2 whole hours ahead of Male. At Nika, sunset was at 8:00 pm. Which meant that we carried on quite late and by the time we freshened up and went to dinner, it was approaching 9:00 pm. But that dinner hour only amplified Nika’s Italianate vibe where dinner tends to start and linger later into the evening.

Double the sun, double the fun.