Day 54 of 111 – Day 1 of 3 at sea on the way from Malé to Seychelles

Day 53 at Malé – 35 minute boat ride to beautiful Bandos Island.

Good luck on your test Katherine!

After the short boat ride to Bandos Island, passing one of the more impressive yachts we have ever seen, anchored just offshore, we arrived at this island paradise. The yacht we passed was named the Ocean Victory.  George looked it up and found out it is 140 meters long with 7 decks and cost the Russian oligarch $300 million dollars, so you know we were at a nice island! The four hours we spent there were some of the most pleasant we have had on the trip.  From the little table we found in the shade on the beach right next to the showers to the amazing snorkeling, this place had everything.  We stopped in the Dive Bandos shop just to see if we could dive and all trips had been booked for the day, but this was one of the nicest dive shops ever.  Everything was neat and tidy and wonderfully organized. We “settled” for snorkeling and it was amazing.  The fish were everywhere and when Ingrid first stepped in the water she almost stepped on a two foot blacktip shark.  Since we had already dove with 6’ blacktips, these “babies” seemed harmless.  The water was so shallow and beautiful that it was initially hard to snorkel without scraping the coral.  We eventually found a channel out to a little deeper water and were awarded with thousands of fish of almost every description.  We did see one crown of thorns starfish, and although beautiful, we understand they are very destructive to the coral reefs. The afternoon spent, snorkeling, walking the beach, sitting at the table in the shade and just relaxing was wonderful.

We had been told in the ship briefings that this was a conservative Muslim country and our expectations had been severely lowered.  Not only did Male exceed the expectations, but it was fantastic.  Even our short wait on shore before we boarded the boat was memorable.  We saw wonderful fish right next to the dock and even talked to a few people fishing from shore.  They were very friendly, spoke understandable, but broken English, and one was very proud of all the cities he had visited in the US. All in all a great day!!

Crown of thorns starfish. They eat the coral reefs!

We got out to where the reef just drops off into deep blue ocean.

Yacht Ocean Victory and Bandos Island.  I think the island is bigger.

Yacht Ocean Victory

Our little spot on the beach!

Two more days at sea on the way to the Seychelles Islands.