Back in Male, after leaving our second island home in the Maldives, it was so easy to start to get withdrawal symptoms from leaving such an amazing place but thankfully, we still had quite a while left in the Maldives and so the only feeling I was feeling at the time was excitement at heading out to our third island in the Maldives – Maafushivaru.
This time, it would be via seaplane (instead of a boat) as Maafushivaru is in the south of the Maldives, and so a quick stint at the Maafushivaru lounge, followed by a 40 minutes seaplane flight – Maafushivaru was finally in sight and boy did it looks amazing!
We checked out the new digs, amazed at the amount of space in the villa and the white minimalist design… oh, and the chilled bottled of bubbly on the corner before heading outside to get a sense of our new surroundings. 😉
One of the main reasons to stay in an island in the south, like Maafushivaru is without a doubt, the wildlife here. This is one of the best spots to see Manta rays (and at the right time of the year, whale sharks) and even on the first evening, we got a taster of how amazing this would be when we saw the sharks down by the beach feeding on a school of fish. (You can see exactly what I mean in this video below).
Then there are those sunsets here!
The Maldives has some pretty epic sunsets and these ones look and feel so different from other sunsets we’d seen so far, which seems silly to say yet incredible to watch as its technically the same sun in the same area so I have no idea how it manages to change every time and impress even more (its probably worth noting that I also never did geography in school – hehe! 🙂 ).
Sunset amazed at and bubbly all gone, we headed down to dinner before I decided to call it an early-ish night as the next day, we would be doing something very exciting indeed – going swimming with Manta Rays!
The next morning was a pretty early start and by 7.50am, we were on the boat and soon enough, off in search of Manta Rays.
Finding the Manta rays was a lot easier than I’d imagined. I kinda thought it would be more like when we went whale watching in Iceland and could barely find any (there were loads of Manta rays here) but in a lot of ways, it was very similar to Iceland in that the dolphins just know how to steal a show!
While we were all out in search of the mantas, almost out of nowhere, a dolphin appeared and begun the typical display of dolphin acrobatics!
It was incredible! I’d never seen it quite as dramatic and quite as drawn out as this.
Part-way through, we noticed the dolphin that would pop out of the water and do a weird tail-flick as it went back in. There also seemed to be something attached to the tail-end.
“Maybe it’s pregnant…” I joked. Turns out, this was actually the case and the dolphin was giving birth as we watched it. I’d never seen anything quite like it and I couldn’t help but feel rather lucky to get to see such an amazing sight.
Then some more dolphins came into the mix and admittedly, I may have gone a bit OTT with my camera…
But I digress, back to the main reason we went out – the Manta rays! Like I was saying earlier, these manta rays down south are so easy to find and they were pretty much popping out everywhere. Maafushivaru organized for their resident marine biologist to go out with out (as well as the boat crew) so you get the most out of your experience.
Needless to say this was snorkelling like no other kind of snorkelling we’d ever experienced! It was absolutely fantastic!
Oh and my humble bragging to Georgia and Chris who were back at home was taken to new highs! We’d all wanted to see it and, seeing as I would expect the same if they’d done it, I bombarded them with so many photos and videos on whatsapp!
Unbelievably chuffed with the amazing sights we’d seen, we headed back to Maafushivaru on time for lunch and a celebrate cocktail or two or three (or many) by the pool!
The Maldives truly just keeps on finding more and more ways to be absolutely amazing, wouldn’t you say?
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