Upon departure from Conte Max we flew back to the Male
Airport and transferred to a seaplane for a 25 minute flight to Vilamendhoo
near the SouthEast corner of the Ari Atoll.
You know you are going to the right kind of place when you are in a 15
passenger twin engine seaplane with no door on the cockpit. The pilot and copilot wear shorts and have bare
feet. If you like atolls - and we do - the
flight is magical.
I don’t think there is any other country on earth where
there are so many atolls and thilas (upcroppings of coral that do not reach the
surface – you could call them subsurface islands). Maldives consists of 26 atolls which include
1190 islands. 290 are inhabited. There are thousands of thilas within the
atolls. Elevation of the highest point
of land in Maldives is 15 ft above sea level.
The country has no rock. Its land
consists entirely of coral. It is about
500 miles long from South to North with the Southernmost island just South of
the Equator. The underwater world there
is amazing. Global warming will submerge
the country if/when the sea level rises occur.
Our divemaster on Conte Max knows the manager of the
Eurodive center on Vilamendhoo. She
corresponded with him to introduce us – so he and his team were expecting us
when we arrived. The dive center has an
excellent array of dive trips each day.
We had three boat dives on one of the days including two at Manta Point
where, as expected, we were able to watch mantas – and a whole lot more. We both did one additional dive. I also did a night dive. We snorkeled around the island on the other
days. The house reef has a lot of sea
life and it is within about 100 feet of the shore in most places. We think it is one of the best resorts in
Maldives for reef quality and accessibility – and it is much less expensive
than many other resorts. We hope to
return.
I also had freediving training during which I improved my
breathholding time (called static apnea) from 1 minute 42 seconds to 3 minutes
14 seconds. I freedove to a depth of 55
feet. That is deeper than I had ever
dived on a single breath. I intend to
have more training. I am confident I
will be able to increase my static apnea and depth.
A sampling of what we saw there is downloaded onto YouTube
at:
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