The most magical night of my life

Day four in the Maldives started as normal: another hearty and delicious breakfast before a snorkel of the coral around the sand bank from last night – the one that now permanently has a peak above sea level. It is amazing. We get our best view of a Hawksbill turtle yet. It was resting in some shallow waters and let us free dive right in front of it. I have to say it looked a little grumpy, although I suppose if I had seven strangers turn up while I was chilling and start sticking cameras in my face I would be a little grumpy too. Our talk with a turtle is followed by more spotting of White Tip sharks, rays and Porcupine Puffer fish. Of course these are just a few of many sea creatures we see.

After we sail to a famous island, which is to be our stop for the rest of the day. It is a beautiful island that used to be home to villas and guest houses, but is now being turned into a full-blown resort. Although this isn’t why it is famous. Back in the early 2010s this island was the base of an illegal rave scene that was raided by the police. Now the Maldives is a Muslim country so across the whole island the police only found one beer however, Teddie does inform us, that they did find many psychedelics and space cakes. The people arrested at the island were apparently all released fairly quickly. Teddie says this is a because back then the police were a lot more relaxed about drugs and because many of those arrested were children of powerful officials. Currently party island is a lot calmer and comprises the worksite for the new resort and beautiful coral and beach.

As we have a few hours before our guided snorkel, the group decide to swim over to the island. Jason and I spend all our time in the water swimming in the shallows by the jetty and reefs. The rest of the group take a wander on the beach. They spot a shark and ray in the shallows that we are swimming in. I get a decent look at the shark but miss the ray all together. Tell you what, however majestic rays are, they are also bloody fast. As I venture into slightly deeper water on the outskirts of the reef I am met with a wall of blue. There is a school of what must be at least a thousand slim blue fish with little black tips on the back of their caudal fin (the tail fin). It is amazing to see how these fish move in unison as a collective. Weirdly I find the sheer volume and the in-sync nature of these little fish more alarming than any of the sharks we have seen. I can’t help but think that if just one of these thousand was, for some reason, to go against its nature and start hurtling toward me, the whole school would follow suit. Luckily, like virtually all fish that see a human, their nature is to avoid them – instincts that I can’t help but empathise with!

A stroll on the beach

A helluva Hawksbill turtle
(click on the top right hand icon)

Later Teddie joins us and we have a guided tour of the reef. We find some colourful growths of coral. Mel’s choreography dance instructor nature comes out as she explains to the group that she wants a synchronised dive to the coral, and for Teddie to get a video of us all as we do it. Kyron, her husband, has his doubts about this plan and, to be honest, I can’t blame him. The group have only just got comfortable with the idea of diving with our snorkels and we are still bumping into each other when we have a whole reef to swim in, let alone during a synchronised dive. Nonetheless we all agree happily and line up in our places and, well, it goes about as well as expected. I personally get a flipper to the face as soon as we dive down. The group is struggling to hold any form of line or grouping. To top it off, we later find out Teddie has accidentally filmed the whole thing as a time lapse so the whole video is in fast forward anyway! Jason, who has been elected by the group as our in-house photography expert – purely based on the fact that he had brought his Go Pro – is able to salvage a couple of screen shots that somewhat resemble what we were after.

Later that day after lunch we are taken for a quick snorkel around the other side of the island. The highlight of which is Teddie bringing up a sea cucumber for the group to touch. It's a weird slug like creature that is incredibly soft and squishy under water but becomes firm and rigid in the air. It has a silky feel to the touch. In all honesty it’s a rather off-putting and phallic looking creature, not helped by that fact that it excretes long white streaks of sand out of one end, which my childish brain can’t help but draw comparisons to, once again, something rather crude.

The reason this snorkel has to be a quick one is because the crew need our little boat to start setting up an amazing beach front area for the group to have a sunset dinner. I have to say the other guests and I are extremely lucky we have a crew that really does go above and beyond to make sure we have an amazing experience. We have a table and benches dug out of the sand surrounded by candles, next to some sand artwork of a Whale shark, behind us a bonfire. I am sad to admit that I do not have the literary skills to explain how magical this setting was. The group watch the sunset together, while using the perfect light to snap a few pics. Then sitting for a beautifully prepared dinner of yellow rice, coleslaw, an array of vegetables, a sausage and onion tomatoey stew, a delicious beef with greens dish and finally an awe-inspiring Mahi Mahi fish. It was one of those meals that was so good that the whole group goes silent as we just wonder at how lucky we are to be enjoying this paradise. After we finish, just to make the experience that much more memorable, the stars and Milky Way start to shine above us, stronger than we have ever seen before.

Once back on the boat, having learnt from last night’s tragic card-over-board experience, the group decide on another game of Zilch, the dice game, while we discuss how amazing our day has been and our favourite parts, and share photos. We are really making life-long memories.

And just when I thought the day couldn’t get better, Teddie says that if we want to do the night dive he had told us about we could do it tonight. I eagerly jump at the chance to get in the water again. Most of the group decide to stay on board; swimming in the ocean with all the boat’s lights turned off doesn’t really appeal to them! So Jason and I, the only two willing to brave the waters, jump off the side of the boat with our snorkels to discover a whole new world. We are surrounded by plankton that emit bioluminescent light when they sense danger. So every time we move our arms or kick our legs the sea around us lights up with hundreds of small whitish blue pulses of light. I can’t help but take a few dives down and look up at the stream of light I leave behind.

With the stars above me and world of light below, this is officially the most magical night of my life!

So far...

The perfect setting, the perfect moonlit meal

The stars and Milky Way shine above us