Overwhelmed does not begin to explain how we felt. In a good way. When you think of the Maldives you think of relaxation, reading a book on a chaise lounge, jumping in the water when it gets too hot. Which we did, once or twice, but there is also so much to do.
Six Senses puts together a weekly list of activities that they place in everyone's room so every guest knows what is available to them that week. Typically each day has some kind of yoga or exercise in the morning, guided snorkeling through the house reef or seagrass, guided meditation, tours of the SHELL, as well as one off excursions throughout the week such as a dolphin sunset cruise, turtle safari, etc. And this is all on top of the activities you can sign up for through the dive center, surf center or ocean water sports (jet skis, paddleboarding, kayaking).
When we first arrived the day prior we took a look at some of the activities and signed up for the guided snorkel tour in the morning and then Jon had a scuba dive at 3pm for which I signed up for a surf lesson at the same time.
We arrived at Chill Bar which has steps right into the house reef at 11am that morning for our guided snorkel. We were met by Coco, the marine biologist on the island who was responsible for learning, educating and helping the population of coral around the resort. He gave us a brief overview of signals to use when snorkeling, what marine life we may expect to see and anything else we should be aware of. Then we were off.
By the end of the trip I have a love hate relationship with the house reef. I love it because there is so much to see. The reef along the resort is huge and there's so much potential to see so much marine life. However, the first 20 feet or so are very shallow and trying to avoid not hitting coral can be more of a struggle than it lets on. Don't swim it during low tide, that's all I'll suggest.
Our first snorkel there that morning proved to be worth it's while. We saw a black-tipped reef shark, turtles, tons of parrot fish, anemonefish (Nemo's cousin), bannerfish, grouper and so much more. I couldn't wait for the rest of the week to see what else we could find!
That afternoon we each had an activity planned for ourself. Jon was going scuba diving at 3pm and I was headed off for a surf lesson. But we had plenty of time before then. We decided to take some of our snorkel learnings and put them to use off of the deck on our villa.
Our villa was overlooking the sea grass, which I'll get into in a future post, but it's an area where a lot of marine life come to eat. We get in, we're swimming around, and all of the sudden I grabbed Jon's arm. There on the floor is an enormous whiptail stingray. I'm not going to lie, it was so large when I first saw it I thought it was a small manta ray, but after some additional reviewing, we realize it was not. It's still an amazing sight, and is flapping around in the sand, swimming off and then circles back to eat a bit and flap around in the sand a bit more. This was a beautiful animal to see, but also one given the size of it I was happy to give some room to. Over the course of our snorkel we saw a few more rays and some incredibly curious and colorful fish before heading back in for lunch.
This afternoon was Jon's first recreational dive since getting certified in October. Keep in mind, Jon got certified in the Atlantic Ocean, so the visibility even on a good day in the Atlantic is no more than a few feet in front of you. Here, you could see the floor of the ocean from your deck. He was extremely excited to be able to see all around him and see so much more than what he could back home.
For me, this was only my second surf lesson. I also took one in the Atlantic last year and did really well (at least standing up on most of the waves) and wanted to learn more. This was a great opportunity with a surf school right at my finger tips and, the best part, WARM WATER!
The water on average was around 80 degrees every day. There was no excuse not to get in.
My surf lesson started on land, just practicing the moves of how to get up and balance on the board. We then went out into the lagoon to put some of that practice into reality, but the lagoon was very calm, so it was more of my instructor, Fiona, pushing me on the board to get the feel of putting the moves into practice. The swell around the resort has been really low the last few days and wasn't expected to pick up until the end of the week, so while trying to get out there again would be nice, it most likely wouldn't happen until Thursday or Friday.
After his dive Jon found me wrapping up at the lagoon which was right off of the pool area. We headed over to the pool bar, Sip Sip, and ordered ourselves a drink before heading back to the room.
Sip Sip is also where a lot of the local fruit bats hang out, as it's right off of the local fruit and vegetable garden the resort has set up. More to come about fruit bats tomorrow!
