If you really have a crowd, then consider Kurumba’s own glass bottom boat for a undersea glimpse of the Maldives aquatic delights. The bigger boat with more glass area does provide a bit more opportunity to see a broader range. The excursion is great for under those under 6 too little to snorkel. Or perhaps anyone else who can’t take in the joys of snorkelling for one reason or another.
Unparalleled snorkelling and work class diving aren’t the only way to explore all of these QI curiosities in the Maldives. If you don’t want to spoil your finely coiffed ‘do, then consider a glass bottomed boat excursion. A number of resorts offer them – Reethi Beach, Kurumba, Baros, Conrad Rangali, Paradise Island, Coco Palm Dhuni Kolhu and Taj Vivanta Coral Reef.
But the top of the line in this unique class of ocean vessels is the Paritetboat brand which both Paradise Island (photo above) and Conrad Maldives Rangali (photo below) feature.
“Paritetboat company developed unique ultra-durable bottom window shaped as an optically regular spheroid of never seen before size 2×3 m – it is the biggest size all over the world. Our glass is made of modified acrylic and has thickness 15 mm it’s more solid than fiber glass boat hull. It allows to enlarge field of view dozens times as compared to ordinary glass bottom boats. For instance, field of view at 9 meter depth is half basketball playground size.”
Question: For those who have been paying attention this past week, what is this a picture of?
Answer: Now that is a Nemo fish! I know because it has the three white stripes!
[Soundeffect]: Buzzzz! Wrong. Actually, the Maldive species ‘Amphiprion clarkii’ has three white stripes when they are young, but as they mature they turn a dark-brown/blackish colour.
Whatever you want to call them, one of the best places to see Anemonefish is Four Seasons Landaa Giravaru. Not just Anemonefish in general, but specifically the babies as their Marine Discovery Center has a breeding research project underway. One downside to the popularity of the Disney film is the popularity of capturing ‘Nemo’ fish for fish tanks. Landaa hopes to be able to improve breeding knowledge to both stock the ocean and to provide an alternative source of supply for fish tanks so they won’t be hunted from the reefs.
If you thought that Anemonefish were cute, the babies are all more the cuter. I couldn’t get my wife out of the Center she was so entranced watching them dart in and out of their host anemones in an incessant tease of pseudo-hide-and-seek. And not just the anemonefish, but the anemones themselves provided a bit of action. You could see them in all different positions all over the tanks. Resident marine biologist Harry Masefield (see photo below) explained that the anemones were quite active and often tried to escape from the tanks by crawling out the top and so they had to devise all sorts of guards. With their swaying tendril-like arms they seem more like colourful vegetation than the quite animated animals that they are.
If BBQ isn’t quite environmentally friendly enough for you, then maybe ‘Green Cooking’ would be more interesting.
No not ‘greens’ cooking. ‘Green Cooking’. Eco-friendly cooking. ‘Carbon-free Cooking’. As opposed to some of my BBQ’s where there is nothing left of the cooking except for the charred remains of a collection of carbon atoms.
Six Senses Laamu has introduced ‘Carbon Free Cooking’ (thanks Sakis)…
Just to add to the experience and bring you even closer to nature, Six Senses Laamu serves the environmentally savvy savouries at a special over-water, glass-floored table (see above).
To start with, one way to reduce the carbon emissions from cooking, is to leave out the ‘cooking’ bit. Or at least the ‘fire’ part. The ‘cooking’ as in combining ingredients into delicious concoctions can carry on. Salads and sushi were about the only ‘raw’ cuisine most people will eat, but Cordon Bleu chef Diana Von Cranach has pioneered a whole range of ‘raw cooking’ which she is bring to Six Senses Laamu (and Soneva Fushi) this coming week. She will be featuring such dishes as “Mixed Mushroom, Oriental Herb & Calamansi Ceviche on Lotus Root, Fresh Living Coconut & Fenugreek Green Soup with Angelhair Choko Noodles, Living Chickpea Chappati.”
The recently passed Summer Bank Holiday (UK) and Labor Day Weekend (USA) are traditionally celebrated with a grand finale BBQ (or ‘barbeque’ or even ‘Bar-B-Q’ for you southerners) of the season. And if BBQ is your thing, one the W Retreat’s signature restaurants is devoted to the cuisine of the flame. Dubbed ‘Fire’ in W’s characteristically succinct style, guests help themselves to one of 4 BBQs complemented by a range of side dishes on offer…
Like most of the W’s food, everything is prepared to order from a range of ingredients that you customise to your liking.
“Primal meets epicurean with spit-roasted whole suckling pig or lamb and BBQ-grilled marinated meat and seafood. Spice it up with Tandoor-cooked nan bread, chicken, fish or seafood accompanied by a variety of curries. Who’s feeling creative? Mix and match ingredients at the Mongolian BBQ where you choose your fave ingredients. Or opt for the à la carte sharing items like succulent whole fish, mezzeh and meat dishes.”
The central fire pit and pervasive tiki-torches fill the evening with a flickering glow for an ambience as inviting as the savoury delicacies.
These creatures should get an endorsement contract with ‘Night Nurse’, the cold medication to help you sleep. It seems all these Nurse Sharks do is sleep. During the daytime when most dives occur that is.
My wife Lori got to see a couple of them diving Furana Thila from Kurumba. Her log book notes…
“Highlight of the dive was a young nurse shark resting in a shallow cave approximately 1.5 metres long. The mother is often there, but not this time. Saw another resting on the sandy bottom.”
Nurse sharks can be found through out the Maldives. They like caves where they can sleep during the day time. My nomination for the top place to see them is Fulidhoo Caves near Dhiggiri. According to Tim Godfrey’s book on Maldives diving, Fulidhoo Caves is one of 4 cave sites meriting the top 3-stars marks in his ratings and a great place for Nurse Sharks…
“The reef slopes from there to 50 metres with caves and overhangs ranging on depth between 25 and 40 metres. The most interesting feature of this dive are the nurse sharks sleeping in the caves.”
To feed or not to feed. That is the question of an increasing number of eco-activists. Certainly one problematic area of fish feeding is visitors taking it upon themselves to feed fish bread and other items purloined from the restaurant. This sort of ill-informed feeding can actually be very harmful as it can throw off the diets of these fish in subtle but critical ways. No visitor should ever feed a fish themselves.
However, fish feeding has been a common feature at various Maldive resorts. Typically around sunset, the resort will bring out kitchen scraps of fish and feed them to sting rays, reef sharks and other scavenger fish who quickly learned to show up for this routine feast. These feeding sessions are more informed about feeding the right things to the right species. But does that make it right? Some activists claim that even this apparently innocuous activity can have long term harmful effects on the species and the ecoysystem.
I’m certainly not enough of an expert to assess. Sometimes the argument is simply based on the principle that humans should interfere as little as possible in the natural environment. While I applaud that principle in general, I’m not of the belief that humans should never interfere with the environment. For starters, we humans interfere constantly without even knowing or trying. In order to remedy the environmental impact we humans have we need to muster broad based support for ecological initiatives. Sometimes the best way to muster this political will is to build rapport and relationships between the creatures and the humans. The ‘panda effect’ or ‘polar bear effect’. The more people fall in love with the natural world, the more they will be willing to support efforts to protect it. And seeing these creatures up close through fish feedings can be a way to enhance that affection for and fascination of them.
Fish feeding is done in a variety of ways. Kurumba used to incorporate it into their meal prep so that as they we gutting the days catch for dinner, the scraps were fed to a range of sharks and sting rays (they don’t do it any more). We always remember Filitheyo where they let the guests feed them (supervised and assisted). But Reethi Beach’s feeding time is so popular that it attracts guests from neighbouring resorts. More impressive, is that they have built a special viewing gallery for the comfort, safety and view of the guests.
Walking along a sandy path under the canopy of coconut tress. Lori and I love our sunset walks around the island when we visit the Maldives. How could it get any better?
Well, that’s what Four Seasons prides itself on. Those little touches that make a spectacle of the already spectacular. At Four Seasons Landaa Giraavaru, one of the their staff lights torches for lighting (instead of electrical lights) along the pathways that makes them all the more romantic. But that’s not all. He also lights little incense sticks that are put in the sand next to the torches. It gives the evening air a soothing accent making a simple walk to the restaurant or back to your villa even more magical.
When people ask ‘What are the Maldives like?’, my first response is always, ‘You know those pictures of a tropical island that is a plot of sand with a single palm tree like in the cartoons? That is the Maldives. Just think of over a thousand of those.’
Well, of course, they are not all that miniscule, but it gets the notion across in a dramatic way. I find that I have to add a bit of hyperbole because most people struggle to truly get their head around the smallness of the islands. When you tell people the islands are small, they think ‘oh, probably takes just a short while to drive around.’ No, it takes a short while to WALK around.
But is there an island that actually fits that iconic stereotype. In fact, I use a photograph of such an island as the background to my About page.
It turns out the name of this dollop of sand is called…wait for it…One Palm Island. Not much in the imagination department, but I guess it is what it says on the tin. It’s just off the ‘coast’ of Soneva Gili about a few hundred yards into the atoll. The Soneva site describes the private dinner you can have there…
“Private dining on One Palm Island. Imagine a tiny strip of sand with one lone palm tree. Imagine the island twinkling in candlelight, surrounded only by the sea and the stars above. A private barbeque dinner on One Palm Island is an experience you will never forget.”
I wish I had said that.
That’s what I keep find myself saying following Maldive.net.mv’s Twitter stream of, among other things, great scoops and stories on Maldives resorts. Fortunately, my pride is not so strong that I am beyond a plenty of borrowing from their leads (with full and proper attribution of course). And so, @maldives (how did they snare that tag?) has become my richest online source of leads for ‘Best Of’ candidates, not to mention my most frequented Maldive web site of late.
Actually, it is more than a website. Maldives.net.mv would also be a contender for the ‘Best Integrated Web’ distinction. They seamlessly and effectively use Twitter and Facebook to complement their web content. In fact, their Twitter stream is probably the best on the Maldives itself. It is smart not to simply mirror the same content across all three media, but instead tailor what is shown where and how it is shown.
The site at the heart of all this digital activity is a real star in its own right. There is not much advertising, just a discrete area to do bookings if interested and a top banner. The writing style is very current and very professional. None of the ‘destination dross’ that spins out of too many travel writers. Part of their secret is that the site is run and written by local Maldivians. So they have the inside track not to mention heartfelt affection on their subject. Still, sometimes material written by locals can sometimes get out of touch with what really interest the foreign visitors. But not at Maldives.net.mv where the stories and approach remain fresh and on the mark.