Day 9 (March 17, 2023): A Bicycle Tour of Nalaguraidhoo Island (Sun Island)

Today’s plan was quite simple: rent bikes and tour Nalaguraidhoo Island. We were at breakfast at 9:00 and picked up the bikes at 9:45. From 10:30 until noon, we rode the bikes all over!  And wow, it was sweltering. By the time we got back to our unit at noon, we were totally dehydrated and done-in by the heat. 

We rested up (actually, we feel asleep!) and then set off for lunch, a snorkel and beach time. 5PM was our typical coffee break in our unit, and then we headed to see the stingrays and shark feeding session before heading for our last dinner on Sun Island. 

Sigh. We will be sad to leave this place tomorrow.



One of the things we talk about when we get home from a trip like this, is the omelet station. Not all omelet stations at all resorts are created equally. This one was exceptional.

And besides the omelet station, they had a crêpe station. This “party hat crêpe” was quite the work of art.


This is our unit, which faced the ocean.  The resort has 460 rooms. 


Setting out on our bikes for an hour-and-a/half tour of the island.  By the way, that’s the view looking out from our unit. 


That’s the island, and we did it from tip to tip. 


This traditional dhoani was tied up at the cargo pier where all provisions for the island are brought in from Male. 


At the westerly tip of the Island.


The roadways throughout the island are made of interlocking brick. I can’t imagine the time it took to create these roads!


Bougainvillaea along the main road. 


From the hotel lobby, this boardwalk connects to a small island, where the “house reef” (for snorkelling) is located, as well as the main jetty for arrivals and departures. 


On several occasions, we went snorkelling just off the building above - where the “house reef” is located. And the collection of fish there is amazing.


Bean bag chairs at the main beach, near the lobby of the hotel.



The hotel pool.


Scenes from the southeast coast of the island:






The easterly point of the island has a really unique sandspit. 





Just love the colours in the water above!


As with many places in the Caribbean, the Maldives is a destination wedding location. Here, the staff have set up for such a wedding on the main beach on the island’s southeast corner. 



These are sea cucumbers. We’ve only seen these in a few places - especially memorable are the ones in Tahiti, because they were so prolific that you really had to watch where you were stepping. They’re not quite as prolific here, but still, you have to watch where you put your feet in certain areas. As far as we know, they’re not poisonous, but I would imagine it would be like stepping on a giant slug.





Our last sunset on Sun Island.


As with the first night we were here, we went back to see the stingrays for their nightly arrival at 6:30 PM



And then it was the shark feeding at 6:30 PM. The other night, we had missed the actual feeding, so it was incredible to watch the frenzy. The largest sharks are nurse sharks. The smaller ones are black tip reef sharks. And thrown in the mix, are several stingrays and a very aggressive and large fish (it’s black) called a jack fish. 







Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 4 (March 12, 2023): Exploring Maldives’ Capital

Image
While most people skip Male altogether, we felt it was essential to spend a little bit of time here in order to get a sense of how the country works, its vibe, the hustle and bustle of daily life, etc.  And that is an experience you simply cannot get on a resort island.  Knowing that our arrival day would see us in a state of post-travel exhaustion, we knew that day two in the country would be our real opportunity to bite into Male, and that is exactly what we did! Breakfast at our boutique hotel was surprisingly good and complete.  We left the hotel juat after 9AM, taking a taxi to Male, where we followed a Lonely Planet walking tour for 2 1/2 hours.  Then we had lunch at a Lonely Planet-suggested cafe, which was excellent.  We ferried it back to Hulhumale, where a sudden and torrential downpour thwarted our efforts to get back to the hotel by bus. Once the rain cleared, we took a walk on the Hulhumale Beach, followed by a much-needed siesta.  We ate dinn...
Read more

Day 7 (March 15, 2023): On the move

Image
It was an early rise this morning, in order to get an early-prepared breakfast at 7:20AM and then a drive via golf-cart to the Seashine boat to Male at 8AM. We took one last walk to the lovely Pearl Sands beach, gobbled down a continental breakfast of cereal, pastries, fruit salad and cappuccinos, then we were off. The packed Seashine boat, filled with locals heading into medical appointments and the like in Male, took exactly 25 minutes to get to the centre of the city.  Everyone disembarked except us, as we were heading to the airport after a brief Male stop. Arriving at the airport, we were told that we had been moved to an earlier flight (10:05 vs. 12:05), which was great news, as it meant two hours less in a hot, humid airport and two hours more at our next resort! The flight was a quick 30 minutes, and was only about half full.  What a wonderful flight it was, as it afforded another set of views upon this stunning island nation, to complement the scenes we saw last Satur...
Read more

Day 3 (March 11, 2023): Arrival in the Republic of Maldives

Image
It was just after 2AM when we left the remote parking stand at Hamad International Airport in Doha, aboard another packed flight (a Boeing 777-300ER) for the Maldives.  We were seated in the very back — row 70 — next to a couple from Halifax, England, who were enroute to the Maldives to mark their 25th wedding anniversary.  As if the meeting of “two Halifaxes” was not crazy enough, they had overnighted in Manchester, UK the night before their flight, while we had spent our pre-flight time in a hotel in Manchester, NH!   It was a smooth and pleasant flight, with the typical attentive service of Qatar Airways.  At 3:30AM, we were served a hot dinner.  Our body clocks were so messed up, however, it could have been breakfast, lunch or dinner and it would have all been acceptable! We landed half an hour early, just after 8AM, and were taken by bus to a small, cramped customs area where multiple flights from Dubai, Moscow, Vienna, etc. joined our fellow Doha passenge...
Read more