Final Days in the Maldives
Redundancy is not usually something to be enjoyed, but we like to think we made the best of an adverse situation to take this ‘big voyage’ and escape from reality. Our first day back in the Maldives was one of the best escapes we could hope for. Admittedly, our return journey didn’t get off to a great start. The flight from Dubai was only three and a half hours but our domestic flight to Gan was delayed several times with the end result being that we spent the best part of a day in the Male departure lounge.
All things being equal, I guess it was only right that we had some much-deserved downtime once we arrived and Bryan used some of his newly found contacts to make sure that happened. So our first full day in the Maldives was spent in the brand new seven-star Shangri-La resort as non-paying guests (the best kind of guest to be). A resort speed boat picked us up at midday and took us to the resort in time for lunch in one of their six restaurants. We then went to the beach villa of our host for an afternoon of vino, snorkelling and sunbathing then back to another restaurant for sundowners and finally dinner in the staff canteen (believe me even that was fantastic!) and then dropped back to Aroha at around 8 pm. The resort is due to open next month so we were really lucky to get the pre-opening visit as guinea pigs. It is going to be an amazing resort and we had a great day.
Today has been a little busier. I was given dinghy bottom scrubbing duty. I tried my best but the dinghy’s bottom is still a bit mucky. Still, my chores were rewarded with a lunch in the local resort – only a three-star not the seven-star to which we have become accustomed, but a decent curry nonetheless. We then did some more snorkelling and a chance to try out the new underwater camera.
Tomorrow’s plan is to hire scooters and do the atoll tour – and hopefully find the place that Bryan says serves a half-decent burger. For the kids, of course. My last five weeks at home saw me in the gym six times a week and I can now see me on a slippery slope with all this eating! The kids are chilling and settling nicely into the new lifestyle. We are hoping to lift the anchor and start the journey to Chagos in a couple of days so it is good for them to get this ‘land’ time now, as the 300 NM passage is far longer than any they’ve done before.
17 June 2009
Our last night in Gan! Early tomorrow morning we will set sail for Chagos and should arrive in around three days’ time.
Our last day has been fun. We hired scooters and set out to explore one end of the atoll to another. Erin was a bit nervous at first, but with a top speed of 30 km per hour, there was not too much to worry about. The journey was broken up plenty of times along the way with drinks and eats and sometimes drinks and eats together!
Alex took charge of one of the mean machines himself when we found a secluded bit of off-road and seemed to do OK. After all that riding we discovered that we had a similar problem to when Bryan and I hired the push bikes – sore bums!! Clearly not enough padding… A real downpour meant we handed the scooters back clean as a whistle and all of us soaked to the skin.
We are pretty much prepared for our pending departure. We have one minor inconvenience; OK, I am playing it down; a fairly significant inconvenience – no flushing toilet! The stopcock which enables certain ‘waste’ to exit the boat is jammed in the closed position. I can’t share the rest of the story with you- just accept that life in paradise does have its ups as well as its downs!
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