Solar power is moving from innovation to the new normal especially at higher end resorts. Thanks to their Swimsol power generation, LUX South Ari Atoll can get identify how much clean energy they are consuming:
Not purely a “Maldives” site, but ever so perfect for it. “Name That Fish” couldn’t be better named itself. Here’s the concept – load your snorkeling or diving videos up their website, they run it through their AI algorithm, and al the prominent fish in the video get prominently tagged with a box identifying their species. Lori and I love our piscatorial treasure hunts in the Maldives and can’t wait to get back to the room to go through our collection of fish identification cards and books to figure out the new things we’ve seen. Now we can just let the computer do the work while we go and sip our pina coladas.
The project is the work of Jake Easterling, co-founder of Scubotics, and features over 11,000 fish in its algorithm. The technology is especially interesting to me because it is the core of my day job. I run a company which uses machine learning algorithms to detect variations in brain health on MRI images of multiple sclerosis patients.
Before reviewing it here on Maldives Complete I thought that I should test it myself so I uploaded one of our fish soup heave vids from a recent trip. There is no formal charge for the service, but the site requests a donation and suggest $5 which seemed reasonable to me. I uploaded it and a few days later I received an email with a link to the new video in a Dropbox location (see above as I’ve loaded on my YouTube channel). It came out superbly capturing most of the main fish visible and no errors of identification that I could spot.
Many top Maldivian resort spas host visiting yoga instructors and others who run special classes, but visiting practitioners are less common and I’ve not yet come across a resident aesthetician like Vakkaru’s Merana Spa is featuring:
You’ve come all this way for the perfect selfie backdrop so it makes sense to have yourself just as striking. Why use Instagram filters when you can refresh the real thing?
For your own personalised memorabilia to express your individual tropical style, LUX North Male features its own Panama hat station. You can choose from a wide range of hot weather headgear and even get is customised with your name.
The heart of the Hard Rock ambience are the ubiquitous memorabilia displays of the most renowned acts in the music world. The sprawling landscape of an entire resort provides a stadium-scale palette for the mementos of performing history underscoring their very distinctive aesthetic like a ten-foot bass tower. Like the most pioneering artists themselves, Hard Rock knows what it is as an entertainment and lifestyle offering and it is not afraid to go all out in expressing it. I find the most tedious resorts to be those vanilla concoctions that try to be all things to all people and only end up being nothing special to everybody. The vibrant vibrations vibe may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but for those who do enjoy it, few do it better.
If you wondering whether to lend some support to Maldives Complete through its recently launched Patreon site, have a look at what some of its fans have said to date.
Many websites of creative works feature “Review” sections to provide testimonials and endorsements. I figured this post could serve that purpose.
INDUSTRY REVIEWS:
TOP BLOG COMMENTS
“I don’t know how to thank you for all your amazing help in planning our Maldives trip!” Well, from here on you can support the Maldives Complete initiative by becoming a Patreon supporter.
From the launch of the website, I have resisted having any commercial part to Maldives Complete – no ads, no sales, no sponsorship. Not only did I not want the pressures of keeping sponsors happy, but I didn’t even want the appearance of any bias. I wanted to cover ALL the resorts (not just a collection of pet ones that had juiced me with payments). And I wanted to provide an objective resource and not just a platform to plug the highest bidders. It was the predominance of such selective shill sites that contributed to me starting the site in the first place.
With the decade-plus history, the site has grown in popularity, scope, content and complexity. This expansion has increased my out-of-pocket costs for hosting and other site support. It has also increased the time required to personally maintain the site and keep the information updated. On top of this, I personally respond to dozens of emails and blog comments every week. Sometimes I have hired local schoolchildren friends to do some of the time-consuming grunt work (or help with household work to free up time for me) which just adds to my out-of-pocket expenses.
What seems to be the conventional approach for such freeware these days is to offer Patreon support. This is simply a digital donation box for people who want to register their appreciation for the material and help ensure its longevity with a more substantive contribution.
People pay premiums on their trips to agents and operators for them to help ensure that their trip is the best. They tip resort staff who work to make sure that their experience is first rate. If I have helped you in a substantial way to make your trip easier and more satisfying (as so many kind comments imply), please consider becoming a supporter. Even a small amount will not only help, but will be an encouraging endorsement for me and my work here.
Thank you for all your past and hopefully continued support.
One of the key criteria to a great house reef is accessibility. The intra-atoll drop-of-sand islands typically have house reefs a few metres from shore. You don’t have to juggle the logistics of signing up to a resort excursion to take you to some snorkel spot. Instead, you can just dive in and the aquatic wonderland reveals itself to you instantly. It is not just the convenience of proximity, but also a bit of reassurance. Despite the fact that you might be standing metre (on the sand not the coral, please!) in merely a metre of mill pond calm water, there is still something unsettling about swimming hundreds of yards off shore. And snorkeling can take a bit of energy so if you have had a particularly extensive outing, then the last thing you relish is an extended swim back to shore.
The islands that on the outer reef tend to be on broad tables which may make for expansive lagoons, but make for either weak or distant house reefs. Some of the resorts on these islands will typically offer regularly excursions taking people to the edge in a dhoni for an easy splash onto the reef.
Kandima does sit on an outer reef plateau and it has gone a step further to support house reef snorkeling constructing a platform in the lagoon relatively close to the edge. You can use it as a base camp for your house reef expedition. Or just for some middle of the ocean swimming or sun bathing.
One of the popular Instagram shots are people mingling with docile nurse sharks. They are quite a big species and so their size and numbers make them look all the more intimidating for those who think are all sharks are scary creatures. Actually, they are about the most docile Selachimorpha you will ever come across.
Nurse sharks are nocturnal and during the day they are often found just lying on the bottom of the seabed or under some overhang. Hence, their French moniker (which is one of my favourite fish names of all time) – “Sleepy Shark”. If anyone claims that a shark always needs to keep moving or it dies, just send them a picture of these dozy dog fish lounging on the seabed. And as a result, unlike the puppy reef sharks so visible cruising the lagoon shallows all day long, nurse sharks are rarely seen during the day from the land.
Rihiveli Dream not only has one of the biggest gathering of resident nurse sharks, but they are very easily seen as they nap in a protected lagoon area just behind the staff quarters. Such proximity and numbers are the result of routine feeding that has lured them in past years; however, the resort no longer engages in such practices. The gang must have decided they like the tranquil and sheltered waters as they continue to hang out there through the day. And guests can go get their Instagram shots from shore during their day-long siesta.
“Fly me to the moon, let me play among the stars…” – Frank Sinatra
Kuredu takes watersports to new heights and times with its Ocean Water Sport “Night Kite Surfing”:
I have to say that soaring above the moonlight seas (which are often especially calm at night) would be quite the experience.