Travels with
Lois and Jason
Maldives
January 4 - 12, 2009
Given that we
were half way around the world, we figured we may as well end our
India adventure with a week of R&R at a Club Med, and the one we
picked was in the Maldives, a chain of atolls in the middle of the
Indian ocean, about 500 miles south of the tip of India, and with
good snorkeling. The picture at right was taken from our
plane as we flew over Club Med with it's palm tree like arrangement
of the island and huts over the water.
We stayed in a hut/suite over the ocean. We were truly in
paradise. We had a living room, bedroom with a four-poster bed
complete with mosquito netting surrounding the bed. Our
bathroom had a stall shower, free standing bathtub overlooking the
ocean and a double sink, a long walk-in closet complete with life
jackets for wading in the ocean from our balcony that led down
stairs to a private platform (with a shower) with a ladder going
into the ocean.
We wanted to spend the week doing the things we like the most:
snorkeling, sailing, and eating. After the first day, we
decided that the snorkeling was too good to miss, so in six days, we
went on 11 snorkeling trips. The morning trip the first day,
and then the morning AND the afternoon trip each day
thereafter. And, each time we went we were in for something
new and surprising. We loved the scenery, beauty, variety of
fish and corals and all around splendor. On each snorkeling
trip we saw fish we had never seen before, or coral formations that
were new and different, or seascapes that were exciting and
dynamic. The variety of fish was astounding, dozens of
varieties. The fish differed in size from very small to the largest
which were one to two feet long. We saw eagle rays, flying (we
mean swimming) in formation. When they flapped their "wings"
it looked like flying, not swimming, and was scary and beautiful at
the same time. We were so sorry we didn't have an underwater
camera. At least we were able to capture the dolphins that we
saw on one trip. There was a pod of about 20 that swam with us
for several minutes.
As for the other things we enjoy doing, the sailing turned out to be
not so good, and the fish was serverd at every lunch and dinner and
we're not fish eaters. This meant that after all the heavy
Indian food, we returned home pretty much the same weight as when we
left.
Photo
journalist: Lois Frand
Writer:
Jason Frand
Editor:
Lois Frand
You can
reach us via email at Jason
or Lois
February
12, 2009