Thursday, Day 75 - Mar 22 - 8am to 5pm, Tender, Malé, Maldives

Male’, the capital of the Republic of Maldives, is located at the southern edge of North Male’ Atoll, Kaafu Atoll. Traditionally, Malé was the “King’s Island,” from where the ancient Maldive Royal families had their palace and ruled the country. Malé is dotted with mosques, wide streets, parks and markets. Tour worthy sites are the national museum, the colorful Fish Market and the Friday mosque with its splendid golden dome. The capital of the Maldives is the island of Male, the most densely populated place on earth: 1 square mile with over 80,000 inhabitants. The population is growing, as young people move to Male from elsewhere in the country. The problem with the rapid growth is the infrastructure has not kept pace. The sewage for the city is dumped almost untreated directly into the ocean. We are cautioned not to swim at the only beach on the island. There is a trash problem also. Everything has to be hauled off the to some other place by boat and apparently there is no regular collection routine.   New construction work and land reclamation is seen everywhere on Male’ and many of the surrounding islands. The surrounding islands are being enlarged and high-rises built to relieve the housing pressure on Male. But it seems little is being done to plan for the rising sea levels in the future.

This is a new port and country for us.  We decide to do a for fee half day ship’s tour to one of the resorts on an outlying island. We do the extra fee the “Beach Escapade to Dhonveli Island.” It is a four hour tour to an outlying island at 12:25PM. After a very leisurely morning, Carolyn goes to the Coffee Connection and grabs a couple of rolls, some sliced ham and cookies and puts together a little picnic for the afternoon. There is no restriction on taking fresh food ashore today. We board the tender about 11:40AM for the 20 plus minute ride to the pier in downtown Male’. The fast speed boat to Dhonveli shows right on time at 12:25PM. It can take 18 people and there are 18 of us waiting. Ultimately, there are 30 on the tour plus Sarah, Jamie, Dana and Ricardo from the staff. They are on the next tender and take the second speed boat.

We have a fast boat ride across the deep blue water though the various tiny islands for about 30 minutes to a beautiful island paradise with the most glorious water in multiple shades of blue and aqua and perfectly white sand beaches. Welcome to the Cinnamon Resort which takes up the whole Dhonveli island. We have the run of most of the island and use of loungers and towels plus freshwater showers and restrooms.

All the amenities of the resort, restaurant, bar, pool tennis courts, etc are available to us, but there is a charge for food and drink and any water sport equipment. There is a beautiful U-shaped bay area that has a small reef running across it and wonderful calm water that is safe for swimming. We grab two loungers under some shade trees with the swimming area on one side and the ocean on the other creating a cool breeze. We swim, read and relax all afternoon and enjoy the lite snack from the ship.

Carolyn explores some of the resort which is very nice with beach front cottages and two groups of over-the-water bungalows. It is a perfect afternoon! The extra tour fee is rather steep at $179pp, but the boat taxi out to the island is $600 round trip per person and to buy a day pass is usually expensive also. So not something we would do on our own and we probably will never be back so it is worth it.

Time to catch the boat back to the ship comes all too soon. The water has become very choppy and it is not safe to go from the speed boat to the ship so we have to go back to the pier and catch the next tender back to the ship.

Back on board Dick goes and gets cocktails. We get ready for dinner and sit on the balcony and watch the sail away through the islands that make up the Maldives. Dinner is another “light one”. We have our “special salad” (a standing order), French onion soup and split a plate of grilled scallops with lemon cream sauce. It is finished off with a Grand Marnier souffle. Yummmm

The clock goes back an hour again tonight. We are tired from the fun in the sun and Dick goes to bed, but Carolyn sits on the balcony and enjoys the quarter moon and the stars on this clear night. The ship is running dark so the heavens really show up! It doesn’t get much better than this!