Dolphins!!

Sorry I haven't really had the time to blog lately, one of the reasons being that I started diving a couple of weeks ago and I just love every second of it. 

But this I just had to share. i have this big grin on my face since 9:45 this morning when I was lucky enough to bump into 8 bottlenose dolphins on our dive. My instructor and myself were over excited and quite frankly I still am. 

I had never seen these amazing creatures in the wild before, so this was a truly amazing, amazing experience for me - the diver-newbie! 

Theses animals have to be some of the cutest! The dive today was only my 5th and I have seen so much!! here are a few pictures - editing takes quite some time as I have started just to film and then I select still images. Hubby got me a GoProHero3+ for my birthday and I absolutely love it! So all my underwater pics come from that camera now. 

Batfish - there is a little group of maybe 6-8 batfishes always at the same spot. they are so cute and so calm!

an underwater view - spot the black and white stripe clownfish! 

The Maldivian Clownfish - always a favorite! 

Just corals - the colours are amazing!! 

Don't know what he is called - but I like him!!

A little leaf fish - always around that coral formation. but today it was out so got a good shot

More corals

and a little starfish

 The Maldivian underwater world is just wonderful.

Crazy about snorkeling!

My 4 year old is absolutely crazy about snorkeling! I never would have imagined after a couple of months on the island that I would see this! The kids obviously get very close to all the staff on the island. This is her snorkeling teacher. Unlike Bali, where the locals do not swim, here the Maldivians are very good swimmers! Nahiz was telling me that even his mum has started swimming on a daily basis - "because it's good exercise for her, you know" he said. A lot of the staff here take a break for a swim around sunset or after work. Most play football though and are very excited about today's draw ( i was told yesterday that today was i very important day! and no it's not because it is also mother's day). 

Meet Nahiz! Pro snorkeler... 

And my little girl is going out to discover the amazing underwater world of the Maldives!... She was very excited because she finally met "Nemo". We have several anemones around the island in the house reef. I think they are happy small things. I am always happy when I see some when I am snorkeling.  If you want to read more about our cute little clownfish, the Amphiprion nigripes, follow this link to Maldivesdivetravel website. 

Our local Nemo - The Maldives Anemone fish

This was 2 days ago. Yesterday she went out again - 45minutes of snorkeling with Nihaz and one of the staff from the dive shop. She told me that A was talking about all the fishes she saw: oriental sweetlips, pufferfish, unicorn fish, etc. Very casually when they came and I asked her what she saw, my little girl replies: "1 turtle and 2 sharks, white tipped reef sharks"; she stops and goes on "and you know mummy, one was very very big". Some of the staff here ask her if she is not afraid and her expression to that is priceless: she simply cannot comprehend that anybody could be afraid of looking at all theses sea creatures. "No, I am a big girl". 

I love our life on our island. Who knows she might end up being Marine biologist.  

Indonesian food fix

One of the things I miss the most about Bali is the food. It is very strange, in the beginning I didn't really enjoy this overload of flavours that comes with the food there. Fish sauce, salt, sugar, kecap manis (local kind of thick black sauce - like oyster sauce or dark thick soja sauce), chili - but by the time we left I simply loved the food. I used to go to a place on Jl Petitenget in Seminyak, called Kolega. Lunch for 2usd, so amazingly good... and spicy!

Tempe (Fried soabeans, corn fritters, baby aubergine with sambal (chili paste), waterspinach, nasi kuning (yellow rice - rice in coconut milk and curcuma) and my favorite you can just see at the bottom: baby squid in ink sauce and chili!)

So, just imagine how happy I got when the Indonesian staff here told me that there is Indonesian restaurants in Male... Salt, the restaurant, is located just next to the fish market, on the 6th floor of the Sonnee building. All taxi drivers know that building apparently! 

The view from the restaurant

Outside the fish market

The chef and owner of Salt is Indonesian. He used to work on one the resort islands here and decided to then open his own place. There is a mix kind of menu and an Indonesia menu. He came out to say hello when he was told he had Balinese visitors (not us but also one of the girls who work here at the resort, whom I met up with in Male). The food is nice: we had tempe with vegetables, ayam goreng (deep fried chicken) and chili kangkung with prawns. He makes the tempe himself and it was my absolute favorite.

Tempe

Ayam Goreng- with a super sambal!!! 

Chili Kangkung

Chili and pickles

They have a Indonesian buffet twice a week at night - I think it's Wednesday and Saturday (not 100% sure on the Saturday). Money wise - one dish is around 90-160mvr, 70mvr for a juice. They also do take away, so we left with a bag full of goodies for the rest of the Indonesian staff... 

Oooh watersports!

One of the big big perks (a part from the seaplane trips obviously and the sunsets and the amazing weather and... and...) are all the water-sports that come with living in this part of the world.

our resort in the background

I had always dreamed one trying para-sailing and it was one of the first things after we arrived on one of hubby's day off. Wow it was as amazing as I thought. though very civilised haha! I thought they were going to drop me in the water or something like that, but no I didn't even get wet. You leave from a small platform at the end of the speed boat and land there as well.

the little platform -- on the way up up!  

The views are stunning, it is so quiet up there. I was just hanging there and enjoying it and taking it all in and just WOW. It is not one of the things that come cheap anywhere in the world so being to do all this for free is just great!

a picture of me :) 

The kids always like it when they come on a speedboat and they were sitting there eating ice cream and watching mummy and daddy flying high up in the air! Well H, being true to himself, feel asleep... He had been so excited about going to the boat that he didn't want to nap.

Weather is changing

The sky was very very dark yesterday. Southwest monsoon is on the way, and that means rainy season is starting. One other thing I have learned from my expat life is how differently people perceive the weather! I have tried to find out by asking staff here how much it is actually going to rain. I get everything: from "it is going to rain everyday non-stop for a whole week" (they have never lived in northern Europe) or "it is just 10-15 minutes per day". Well I guess I have to wait and see. The rain did not come yesterday, well only about 1 minute of it and not more than a few drops. The kids love it when it rains! They can run outside in the swimming gear, jump in the pool or in the sea; they think it's great fun and H, my 2 year old, asks everyday if it's going to rain.

I love the contrast of the colours on this picture, the sea is so clear compared to that somber sky. The boat in the center is the traditional Maldivian boat, called a dhoni. The other typical Maldivian thing on the picture is one of our little friends, the makana on the left. The makana is simply the local grey heron - we have 3 living her with us, I don't think they ever leave the island. They are a common view on resort islands. 

Hospital trips and first lunch in Male

I have had the unfortunate need to fly to Male a few times over the last weeks for doctor visits - first A got fungi in her ears, the right, then a couple of weeks later the left. and then, ouch, i got tooth ache, so i just had to take 3 trips for one tooth! That is definitely the down side of a small island. We have a doctor on site but obviously he is neither ENT or dentist for that matter - but then you get to travel in a sea plane, and that's bonus... even with tooth ache!

View of Male after take off 

Sea plane just landed! sometimes we take off from a platform! 

So if I understood right, this is the chain of events: the resort doctor refers to a specialist at the hospital - we went to ADK hospital. I got a letter with his diagnosis and you can call the hospital for an appointment (and try to get one), otherwise you have to go early early to the hospital and get a token number before they run out... and then you wait. I was lucky enough that our HR guy went got the token so when we arrived to the hospital we were seen after 30 min, for the dentist part he kind of talked his way in and I was seen. The hospital is supposed to be the best in Male. I have to say that both the ENT and the dentist were good. The ENT didn't even prescribe antibiotics for my daughter when I told him I didn't want them! Just drops for the ears. The dentist was definitely on the patient side and treated my tooth well. I think both were from India. Price wise it was of course super cheap compared to European standards; 200mvr (13usd) for a consultation and 650mvr (45usd) for the root canal. I needed to go back on a couple of occasions, the hospital called me the day before to give me the appointment.These rates are for Maldivians and Expats. Tourists apparently pay the double, if i understood well. All in all a positive experience, it wouldn't be my first choice to get treated here, but for something like a tooth where I couldn't really do differently it's ok. 

One of the times we managed even to squeeze in a lunch. My husband needed to go quickly back to work so we had a lunch in a cafe by the jetty where the ferry goes back to the airport. 

Service was ok, food was okish, not super exciting, not horrible either. It's an easy and cool place (as in there is air conditioning!!) to go to if you are coming/going to the airport. I think the Maldives must be the only country where they serve tuna, when you order a portion of fish and chips, thought that was funny; A didn't like though, H eats everything. I had a local dish with dhal, grilled tuna in chili paste (yes again and always) and paratha. I liked mine. The place was clean with quite a lot of people coming to have a drink and take advantage of the free WIFI. 

Fried rice - it was over cooked though, so not very nice.

kids dish - whoops picture is not very clear! 

I think a main dish was about 100 mvr - I paid in US dollar and get change back in half mvr and half usd, don't forget to take your calculator with you. I think the check came with the price both in Dollars and Rufiyaa. 

Our house reef!

First time I heard mentioning the "house reef" I had no clue what the guys from the dive shop were talking about! Then they started mentioning turtles, sharks and other exotic fish names and I understood they were referring to the coral reef that is around our small island! Talking about small island, I measured our little paradise on google earth and it is something like 250m long at the longest point and 200m at the largest point (or maybe the other way around) that is without the extension for the villas built on the water. So yes it is small. I think to snorkel around it, it probably takes around 2 hours. I haven't tried yet, but will soon I hope.

Of course diving here is the big hit, haven't been able to start yet, but just to snorkel is amazing. Here are a few pics of our amazing "house reef". It is home to I think 4 turtles, several white tipped reef shark - not dangerous and generally shy - and wow thousands of fishes: big, small, juveniles and babies! it's another world happening "down under". I am no fish expert, so if you see mistakes please do correct me!

So here we go! ... this is what i see, a couple of minutes of swimming from the shore!

Moorish Idols, Empress Angelfishes, Blue Surgeons, Butterfly fishes, Parrot fishes... just to name a few! 

Maldivian Anemone fish (our local Nemo!) and a family of Blue Stripe Snappers

Batfishes and a Oriental Sweet Lips in the background

A cute Porcupine Fish

Yellow Margin Triggerfish

A White Tipped Reef Shark - I was chasing it for a picture, but he is very camera shy! unfortunately visibility was not the best that day.

and finally one of our sea turtles! These pictures are taken on 2 occasions, but I think it's the same one...

and there are so many more! next time...