Marvellous Maldives!

Northern Germany is looking a wee bit like the Maldives in the Monsoon (extremely wet) but that won’t stop us perusing my finished Maldives memory page! 

Sea, powdery white sand and exotic fish that’s basically what it’s about, isn’t it! Having tried three different islands, each with its own flair I'd have to say Kurumba was without question the most luxurious. The heady scent of Frangipani, fabulous rooms, restrooms surrounded by channels of water with floating exotic blooms and a pick up from Malé by white speed boat. What more could you ask for? I'll tell you ....... an exotic outdoor bathroom, (not the loo, it was in the indoor bathroom) and this led to one of my most embarrassing holiday bloopers! 

The indoor bathroom with free standing bathtub opened onto the outdoor bathroom through glass doors and outside was a walled ''rainfall'' shower with a huge Savoy shower head. My family were relaxing on the beach and I'd been to the fitness room, came back, taken  off my sweaty gear and headed out under the shower, pulling the glass door to. BIG mistake! The maid had activated the door lock and now I was naked, locked in the walled garden and I didn’t expect anybody to come looking for me for hours. What now? Hmmmm, right, time to get creative, I made myself a makeshift bikini out of leaves (thank goodness tropical plants have large leaves! That’s me covering my assets top left!) and scaled the garden wall which was over 6’ with the help of the shower head. Fortunately, I managed to jump down from the wall without breaking both ankles and hopefully nobody saw me from behind while I was climbing, I then scrambled to the beach getting some very peculiar looks! Ahhhh, sweet memories, I spent so much time under that garden shower, my ''cleanest'' holiday ever! 

That’s my husband snorkelling ..... and looking for sharks! While I am happy plittering around in the shallows looking for tiddly, coloured fish, my husband is an intrepid scuba diver and when not diving, snorkelling,; his goal ....... sharks, the bigger the better! Although we both have diving licenses (and our equipment has improved since the days of the plastic beach shoes and shared mask too) he really is in a class of his own, too fearless for me. Manta rays, huge sea turtles, Moray eels, huge Bull sharks, sharks in numerous shapes and sizes you name it, he's seen it (and touched it!). Black-tipped reef sharks are just ''tiddlers'' but are worth getting in to snorkel with! 

My kind of fish are more like that sweet Blue Eye Royal Dotty Back, it popped up every morning after breakfast to say hallo.