This is Steve’s description of his fishing experience on our vacation to The Maldives. As you can see, his writing style is much different than mine. I will insert some pictures to they story.
Linda and I took a trip to the Maldives in January, and I arranged 3 days of fishing at our second stop, Como Maalifushi, comohotels.com/maalifushi with guide Craig Richardson. Craig is a young South African with experience at other Indian Ocean locales including the Seychelles an Brandon’s atoll. He is exploring the fishing opportunities at the Thaa atoll, which is about 25 miles in diameter.
Craig explained that bonefish were scarce, having left the atoll to spawn in deep water for about a 2 month period, but that several species of trevally, triggerfish, and grouper, among others, were around.
This is a bonefish that Steve caught when we were in Abaco, The Bahamas; staying at Delphi-Bahamas.com.
The water temperature on the flats was above normal due to calm sunny weather, so on the first day, January 11, we ran 45 minutes to the other side of the atoll, where the water was 2-3 degrees cooler. We poled some gorgeous flats, but saw only a few small fast moving trevally’ I took a few shots and got a couple to follow but no hookups. In the afternoon, at low tide, we waded between 2 small islands in a shallow area with coral and eelgrass. Fish were working the area. In short order I caught a bluefin trevally,
a yellow spotted trevally and
a needlescale queenfish, all 2-3 pounds. Then I hooked a big bluefin, which made a powerful run across a very shallow reef covered with coral. Craig held my line high and kept the fish from wrapping my leader and breaking off. He took at least 100 yards of line before tiring. Craig tailed him and we got some photos. He estimated him at 11-12 pounds, a beauty considering the maximum size in the Maldives is around 14 pounds. 
Soon after releasing the fish, we saw a huge commotion about 200 feet away, probably a Giant Trevally (GT) attacking a school of mullet.
We grabbed the 12 weight and pursued him, but he disappeared. But we came upon scattered triggerfish. I found them very difficult to spot, unless they tailed, so many of my casts landed right on top of them and they spooked. I did get one take, but missed the strike.
Steve also caught a honeycomb grouper, but as this was a reef fish, and not a gamefish, it is not included in his narrative. 
The next day was again sunny and calm, and the fishing on the flats was slow. I caught a small pipefish
and a small bluefin trevally. We spent some time dredging with a 700 grain 12 weight line in a deep channel with strong tidal current, but had no action. Craig said this technique produces very big fish, including tuna, sailfish and GTs.
With continued high water temperatures on my third day, Craig suggested we try jigging and popping with heavy spinning tackle outside the atoll. I caught a pretty peacock grouper on the jig, 
Here is the closeup.
Steve also caught two immature peacock groupers.
and either snagged the bottom or hooked a very big grouper before the hook popped free. He caught a lyre tail grouper and 2 yellow lipped emperors of 5-6 pounds on a big Sure Cast popper. 
It was fun, but we did not see a GT. Craig’s engine began conking out every few seconds, and it was a good thing we had only a couple of miles to cover to get back. It was an interesting 3 days, with 9 counters of 6 species new to me, including a linker bluefin trevally.
Craig did post a picture on Instagram of a triggerfish a client of his caught after Steve and I left Como Mallaifushi. Steve was jealous.
We woke up to our last beautiful sunrise from our Villa. Then it was off to breakfast at Madi. I had the chocolate waffle again, and Steve had an omelette.
I tried to take a picture of the pool area just like the professional ones. With this angle you would think that I had one too many Mimosa’s! That was one thing that Como didn’t have that Gili did, champagne at breakfast. I have noticed in my travels that the further north you travel the earlier the drinking starts. When my darling daughter and I went to Scandinavia with her dance group I took detailed notes on the drinking. In Denmark I observed drinking at lunch. In Iceland the drinking was at breakfast!
Here is Steve giving me a worried look. He knows that I have plotting and scheming on my mind. I had noticed this couple at the resort. She was the most beautiful guest there. He was interesting. I had already told her that I thought she was quite beautiful. She reminded me of Megan Markle, but I knew that was impossible as he was no Prince Harry. Steve remarked to me “Are you pretending to take my picture?”
Well yes, I was. He reminded me of a movie star, I couldn’t remember who. Bradley something or other? I texted my girlfriends back home. They snorted back NO!
Scruffy beard was correct as was head angle. However ears stuck out too much. Oh well, maybe we’ll run into a movie star on our next vacation. We did run into Anthony Daniels who played C3PO from Star Wars in South America, however he was gone before I realized who he was!
After breakfast we went to the gym and then back to our villa for the final packing.
Goodbye fancier villas that we didn’t stay in .
Packing all done, and final lounging under our sala we returned to Thia for lunch. This time I got the breadsticks without Steve’s fingers in the picture. 
Steve had the burger and fries. He told me to “Hurry up and take the picture” as he hates cold fries. As a result the picture was a little shaky.
I requested the Caesar salad with grilled fish and traditional dressing. I got the Green Goddess Avocado instead.
Now after lunch we went to pay our bill. Here is Reception totaling the damage. Ouch!
Steve admired the wall decorations. They were wood.
Here is Steve asking if I am done yet. “It’s time to go!”
Here we are with S and A. One last picture before we go home. The two of them were very lucky it was our last day together. I didn’t get a chance to ask all my questions.
Here I am on the speed boat, holding the Birkin! S didn’t even ask me to wash my hands first! It took her 5 years on the list to get one! Lucky S!
Here is the staff waving us goodbye! Please come back again and spend your money with us!
I grabbed the front seat. I wanted to see everything!
Here we all are on the plane. Steve looking happy, first leg of trip to commence. A is going me that look, “See if you can behave!”
This map gives you an idea where The Maldives are located. Tourism is a big industry here! All the resorts have to have at least 50% of their employees as Maldivians.
Unfortunately or fortunately for S and A their flight on Emirates was to depart before ours. After hugs goodbye, and a stern “Behave” from A, Steve and I waited in the lounge.
After two hours of waiting we got in the shuttle to head to the main airport.
I found it amazing how close the airport was to the ocean. This is on the access road.
Goodbye Male! That white building on the right is a cruise ship, not a building!
That must be A and S’s airplane! I am sure they are sitting in first class!
Here we are in the scrum waiting to go through the luggage x-ray. That must be a surfboard in the orange and black bag.
Now that’s what I call no line!
This was the lounge for business and first class. I only had a bottle of water. No reason to try some food and get ill on the way home. Smart I am!
Finally our flight was called for boarding!
A refreshing lemony mint drink with cool towel before lift off!
This would be the flight path for our trip to Qatar. We would leave around 8:20 and arrive in Male at 11:40 local time (really 1:40 Male time. I don’t even want to think what time it was Como time, that was an hour different from Male time.
Here is one of the flight attendants in one of their four wardrobe changes. I noticed their suitcases in JFK, they were really big!
These are only a few of the named atolls in The Maldives!
I had a glass of tea with my warm nuts.
I wanted to eat lightly during this long trip. I had the lentil soup.
The Arab Mezze plate.
Followed by the pasta. I only ate one. Too gloppy for me!
I even only had two bites of the dessert!
Almost there! A and S are probably in their own beds in Dubai, after going through their mail!
Steve noted this about the flight map. It would show the direction of Mecca, for those who wanted to pray.
We finally landed in Doha. This airport was hopping, even at 1 in the morning!
Not sure what this was. Ah yes, breakfast. Scrambled eggs with chives. After a 10 hours flying you really don’t know what is going on.
Almost home! Look at all that ice on the JFK approach!
After an exceptionally long drive (never land at JFK during morning rush hour), we finally made it home. This is our side yard.
No breakfast pictures today, as you have probably already seen them all. Here is a picture an artfully rolled up towel and my ginger tea that I brought back from the spa. Steve went to the spa today to have a taksu massage. It involved deep tissue and also some stretching. No where near as painful as a Thai massage.
I have decided to post some beautiful pictures from Instagram and the resort’s Facebook pages. This is the sea plane and dock. Look at that beautiful water. I’m not sure if @con_fession uses filters or not, but it is a gorgeous picture!
This is one of the spas treatment rooms. I didn’t have one of the bath treatments, nor did I get to sit in one of the chairs. Guess I’ll have to come back next year.
Our room never had the doors open to the outside like this room. We like air conditioning too much. I wonder if the photographer of this room bumped his head on the light fixture.
Looks like the couple that stayed in this room, opened the doors all the way, and didn’t have junk strewn all over.
I couldn’t take this picture as I would have fallen into the Indian Ocean. I’m not sure how they were able to take it!
Steve and I decided to have lunch at Thia. Here is Steve trying to nab a bread stick before I took the picture! Bad Steve! You know you have to wait until the picture is taken! We shared a pizza and a Caesar salad. The salad was not as good as yesterday’s, as it had Green Goddess dressing, and too many anchovies! And here I was commenting the other day that I didn’t come all the way to the Maldives for pizza! No pictures, as I forgot to take them!
For dinner we were going to join A and S at the Japanese Restaurant. They promised to take us under their wing and choose food that we would enjoy. We started with the bottle of Tattinger that was the gift of our travel agent. Thank you 
A and S ordered us some canapés. Fried oyster, raw tuna tacos, and endame. They were all very good. Steve doesn’t like oysters so he skipped his. 
We went inside to watch the chefs in action. I only asked a few questions. I had heard that you are supposed to sit down, shut up and just eat what the chef wants to give you. These guys were very friendly. The gentleman on the left is from Nepal, he speaks many languages.
A beautiful tuna presentation. Steve and I didn’t eat this at the fish was raw. Not sure why we would eat the tuna taco and not this. Maybe because the tuna taco was more like a ceviche.
All sorts of stuff go into making the sushi. I don’t remember what any of it was besides rice, sea weed and fish.
This fish looked like salmon, but it wasn’t. It was Kingfish.
Presentation all done.
A lot of shaping was involved.
The first course that Steve and I had while A and S had their sashimi was tempura. We love Tempura.
I’m not sure what was in these, we didn’t eat them either.
These were orders all set to go to some of the diners’ tables. We were the only ones at the Sushi Bar, every one else was eating outside.
Our entree was something that looked like chicken fried rice. It was good. I wish I could remember what it was called so I could order it elsewhere. 
S highly recommended the green tea ice cream. It was light and refreshing. I am going to look for it in the ice cream section at the grocery store when we come back home. I had it in a dish, I also only had one scoop. I was hoping not to gain weight this trip.
A had the blueberry dessert. I would have tried some of his if I had known him one more day. We left A and S to go to the bar, Steve and I went back to our room. I think that A subsidized our meal. It was very sweet of them to do so. They wanted us to have a good experience at a Japanese restaurant, and we did!
We started out with another nice breakfast. I had a cherry danish and white dragon fruit.
We each had two cappuccinos.
Steve had an omelette.
I had the French toast with passion fruit curd, banana and coffee nectar. Have you ever had coffee nectar? I couldn’t really taste the coffee.
Instead of a massage, I decided to explore the fruit plate. I thought the pear shaped ones were interesting.
Unfortunately they were not very tasty. Wet, but no flavor. I have no idea what they were.The little nut one was very goopy, I think that it was past its prime.
Days that Steve doesn’t fish he gets a little bored. So after his massage we ordered a Caesar salad delivered to the room. Now room service is something that I NEVER do, but Steve did it, so it doesn’t count. I did share it. It was very yummy.
We asked the staff if we could bring out unopened bottle of Tattinger that was left in the room to enjoy while watching the sun set. Here’s Steve lounging already, while I am exploring the best camera angles.
There was a DJ on the beach. He picked some really soothing tracks. The music was not too loud, I complimented him on the volume and choice of songs. I told him he was a blessing, and he was quite touched. He blessed me also.
Hat and Sunglasses off, or hat and sunglasses on. Which do you prefer? I think I like the hat and sunglasses on. I look more like a movie star waiting for my closeup. Steve’s skin looks really good, doesn’t it?
Here we are for the presentation of the champagne.
Champagne at sunset, a wonderful end to a lovely day.
Smoked salmon canapés with caviar on cucumber anyone? Yes please, I’ll eat half of Steve’s. A toast to all my friends.May your lives be filled with blessings.
Good Morning! The posts will probably go faster now that I have covered the details of the grounds, spa and rooms. We won’t have many dinner pictures as they were all al fresco except for the dinner that you will read about on the 16th. I still have four days to cover until then, so hold on!
I had the full English breakfast on Saturday. This time the bacon was extra crispy as requested. We still haven’t gotten a Rosti as good as the ones at Blanket Bay in Glenorchy, New Zealand.
Steve had a dish that you would never get in a diner in the United States for breakfast. Obviously, some people thought this would be a great dish for breakfast as it was on the menu!
I though that you might be amused by these salt and pepper dishes. They crystals were so large, that you couldn’t get your food properly seasoned.
I decided to take a stroll to the gardens to observe. I was a wee bit scared to get too close to the vegetables and decided to head to the beach for a rest. 
This was the beach at 11:00 a.m. I remember posting on instagram saying “where is everybody?”
Soon 12:45 rolled around and it was time for me to head back to the spa for a Thai Massage. I had a Thai Massage once in Washington D.C.. It was somewhat uncomfortable, but my back and shoulders are still so tight, that I thought the stretching might help me. I was given a beautiful set of Thai pajamas to wear. This is the last time I would look so happy, until my massage was over. How was it? Let’s just say that massage did start with a soothing foot soak. Then we moved to the cushion on the floor. Unfortunately I can not lie face down for longer than five minutes before my neck and shoulders starts rebelling. So I moved to the massage table, where my head could stay cradled. The therapist did a lot of stretching. There are no oils, in a Thai massage, just firm stokes of the hand, wrist, elbows and knees. Then she asked me to flip over and lie on the floor. More stretching of body parts, that didn’t really want to go where she was trying to put them! My 90 minutes of treatment ended and I was free to go. I had originally thought to have another massage on Sunday, but we agreed that my body was going to be really sore the next day and maybe another massge would not be a good idea.
Here is the pipe fish that Steve caught on his second day. Steve likes to see his fish pictures, so to make him happy I will post this one again.
Steve caught two of these yellow lipped Emperor fish. Isn’t this a beautiful fish?
This picture of the fish on top is of the immature peacock grouper. The mature peacock grouper is on the bottom. They are mirror images of themselves. The adults are quite territorial and would drive the young away if they had the same colors. By looking differently as young, they are not driven away by the adults. Steve also got a lyretail grouper, but I haven’t gotten a picture of that fish yet.
While Steve fished, I rested under the Sala.
For dinner Saturday night, we decided to have a drink and watch the sunset at the bar in the Japanese restaurant, Tai. I ordered a drink that sounded right up my alley, and that looked delicious. Unfortunately it was the saltiest drink imaginable. The bar tender tried to doctor it up for me by adding sugar, but I don’t think anything would have saved it! We met a lovely couple at the bar, and had fun talking to them. They live in Dubai and also Vancouver. I had asked them about flying Emirates and Etihad, and had they ever flown in the Apartment or Residence. These are the super first class seats of those airlines, you know, the ones with the showers, and cost tens of thousand of dollars to be in. They had! Well by now, you know I was just about vibrating. I was so excited to meet actual people who had flown in these seats. They just about broke my heart when they said that the flights weren’t really that special, and a waste of money. You know me, I was hoping we would be able to see each other again the next day, I wanted to hear more stories. This was Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous in Real Life! I joked with them that Steve would be slipping them a $20 bill for telling me that the seats were not anything special, and that the Business Class seats on Qatar that we were flying were really quite nice.
Here is a picture of the sunset. People were holding the parasols so they wouldn’t be bothered by the glare. Every few minutes they would peak around the parasol and pose for selfies.
Steve had fried dumplings as his starter.
For dinner I had the very American grilled lamb chops with mashed potatoes and shaved apple. Have you ever eaten mashed potatoes with chop sticks? I challenge you to do so!
Steve had fried rice with wagyu beef with an egg on top. For dessert we had ice cream cones. Then off to bed, we had a big day of nothing to do but relax as the boat was busted and Steve couldn’t go fishing anymore.
Steve caught another beautiful peacock grouper, or perhaps this was the same one, but from a different angle. My what sharp teeth he has!
I had decided that I had enough laying about and was off to explore the gym and spa. Down the garden path I went admiring the landscaped grounds.
I removed my designer Croc sandals and entered Como Shambhala, the spa.
Here we have the reception desk. You could get earphones, and locker keys here.
There was a fresh fruit display, and cold water or piping hot sweetened ginger tea was offered to you. The ginger tea slightly burned my throat, but in a good way. I could feel healthier by the minute!
If you forgot your designer yoga outfit, you could make a purchase in the gift shop at the spa. I had brought enough Lululemon workout gear of my own, so I didn’t buy anything. There were yoga mats provided in your room. Complimentary yoga sessions were held once a day, I didn’t take any classes.
This is another view of the spa lobby. You would sit here while you waited to your treatment.
The locker rooms, indoor yoga studio and gym were down this walkway. Their were shallow pools of water interspersed with sculpture. All very soothing.
This is the indoor yoga studio. Several mornings during my stay a number of the female staff were practicing for a dance to be performed on Como Maalifushi’s anniversary. I forgot to mention that there was a performance by several of the male staff our first night. The little kids loved to run up to the dancers, and try to steal the drums that they were performing with.
Let’s now enter the gym shall we? On the right is a sign in table. I think that Steve and I were the only ones to sign in. Steve told me that that stack of gym weights was very expensive. How he knows that type of stuff I don’t know.
There were treadmills, an elliptical and a recumbent bike (Yay!). I rode the bike every day that we were there from Friday on!
This is the view in the other direction. The gym also had a number of weight machines, and balance balls.
More of the gym and the expensive weights. They were in kilos, so I couldn’t use them. Ha Ha!
I tried to use some of the weight machines. I couldn’t figure out how to get on, off, or move the seat positions of the machine in the top middle of the page. I don’t think that anyone else could figure it out either, as it remained in one position our whole stay!
I am done riding the bike, so lets go see the changing rooms. Males to the left and females to the right. What an interesting piece of driftwood on the wall.
The opening to the left leads to the steam room and sauna. There was a soaking jacuzzi in the background. I used it commando, I didn’t read the sign on the wall that said “Please wear a bathing suit!” Uh Oh,
Here are the lockers. I got a different locker every time, and got quite confused remembering which locker was mine. As I fumbled with my key once too often I realized that the keys had numbers on them. My life suddenly got a whole lot easier! Inside the lockers were sandals, towels and a fluffy robe with sash. When Steve went to the spa his robe was too small as he is so powerfully built. They had to get him an extra large from storage!
This is the ladies toilet. There were these hoses in all the bathrooms. I wasn’t sure what they were for. I didn’t ask. Sometimes I really don’t ask questions, hard as that is to believe!
This is the shower. Along with two toilets, there were two showers.
Here we have another view of the jacuzzi. It was kept a little too cool for me. But I do enjoy a waterfall edge!
Part of my thorough investigation led me to try the steam room. Yes, it was quite steamy!
The sauna of course was dry heat, so you could see inside.
Here is the interior of my locker. I sure can fill up a small space with my junk can’t I?
Steam room is ready, so I’ll see you later. Would I see the treatment rooms?
Would this yellow lipped emperor be the last fish that Steve would catch? How many fish would he catch for the trip? Would the guides’s boat have mechanicals? Would I have a massage? Would I meet an interesting couple? Stay tuned kids, it’s only Friday and we’re here until Wednesday!
Good Morning from my canopy! What a beautiful spot to have a cup of coffee, but no time for that! We have to go to breakfast as Steve needs to be ready to leave for fishing at 8:30.
One final sunrise picture and I am good to go.
Breakfast was the usual selections of the buffet and the choice of hot food to order from the menu. Everyday there was a rotating special, I could never understand what they were. Here is Steve in his bonefishing outfit, he covers himself head to toe. No face buff at breakfast thought! We don’t want to scare the other guests!
I loved the fruit danish. I would eat one every day. I found the puffy croissants too hard to eat. First world problems.
There was a different cut fruit salad every day also. This was watermelon with dragon fruit. I asked staff what the white fruit was as I thought dragon fruit was only purple with black spots. I was wrong, it comes in white and purple varieties!
I even tried to cool down juice.
This morning I had the omelette with gruyere, onion, mushroom and spinach. I learned that morning to order my bacon extra crispy! This bacon was a little too rare for me!
I wished Steve and Craig good fishing! I wanted to show you Craig’s boat. It was made in the Florida Keys. The boat and trailer was transported in a cargo ship. I’m not sure how long it took to get here, Craig’s boss drove it 110 nautical miles from Male to Maalifushi. It took about five hours. He had to stop for gas once.
So while Steve was off fishing I decided to explore. I walked along the beach, admiring the dhoni and the speedboat that takes you to the seaplane. I was calling the speedboat a ferry in previous posts, in this case it’s more accurate to call it a speedboat.
This map shows you the Thaa atoll and all the dive sites. The resort is located near spot 1, there is an arrow pointing from the Como Feather on the map. We didn’t go diving, only snorkeling. I am sure if you liked to scuba you would have a great time here. It appears that spot 21 is called Gunnar’s rock. I hope he didn’t hit anything the day he discovered it. Let’s hope that he caught a big fish there!
Continuing to explore I examined the lounge beds by the beach. They were double cushioned with a terry cover that was laundered and replaced each day. They was a teak table to put your book or drink on.
Here is the lounge bed with the back erect so you could read, watch your children on the beach, ogle people in bathing suits behind your polarized lenses, or catch up on your blogging. Guess what I did? A little bit of this, a little bit of that, however as we had no children with us caption two was eliminated. Looks like I was thinking about snorkeling also.
I ended up siting on about three of the lounge beds, trying to stay out of the sun! Staff might have thought that I was Goldilocks!
Over my shoulder you can see the Madi Restaurant, where we had breakfast every day. The pool had a zero entrance in one part of it. The trees were in the middle of the pool. It reminded him of a nasty golf course hole!
While I was blogging, Steve caught this peacock grouper. This was an immature fish . The mature fish have the marking reversed. Pink with blue spots.
I was brought ice water to enjoy. This is the water I was looking for when I was complaining a few posts ago. I knew it was available as I had gotten it on Friday. However on Sunday I couldn’t get any!
While I was sipping my ice water Steve got this long skinny pipe fish. Don’t you wonder how they came up with this creative name? Now you can tell that Steve took this picture. He is not a professional like Craig! Steve gets, shoes, cushions, tackle and no faces in his pictures. Craig gets fish and sometimes the fisherman!
Steve is itching to go to lunch now so I will have to break off posting for a bit. I couldn’t resist showing you this couple, they had a professional photographer posing them. “Cross your feet, look at me, madame should make goo eyes at the man, hold the shell necklace just so!” Talk about exhausting! I’ll just have to explore the spa and gym in my next post!
Here are the male and female wash rooms outside the restaurant. The stick figures on the door were a a little bit easier to interpret than those at Gili Lankanfushi. I accidentally walked in to the men’s room.
Here we have the men’s room at Gili Lankanfushi! The urinal was my first clue I was somewhere I didn’t belong. It must be quite soothing to pee here. I am sure some people would be afraid to use it, thinking that it was in fact an object d’art!
Look! I found the picture! Not easy when you have over 15,000 pictures in your photo stream! But my memory for trivial details such as this is extreme, and I could find the picture in under two minutes! You go Linda!
Back to the tour of the grounds. This is where the pizzas are made at lunch. I didn’t try them, as I only had lunch one day, and it wasn’t pizza! I’m not traveling all this distance to eat pizza!
Here we have the last couple to eat breakfast, making goo goo eyes at each other. Perhaps they are on their honeymoon!
This is a view of the bar, it looks really nice. Doubtful that I will go there. I just don’t do bars.
Well maybe I will eat lunch here. Steve is off fishing, I might as well enjoy something to eat, I know that Steve’s guide arranged a lunch for him.
Bread sticks, and focaccia, oil with vinegar, butter an caponata. I tried all three toppings.
I ordered my first iced tea of the trip. Ordinarily I drink iced tea with lemonade every day. They brought me a little carafe of liquid sugar.
Now that is a serious burger with fries. I had to deconstruct it to eat it. It was wagyu beef, done medium rare, and the fries were as good as they look! Hmm, seems I will travel a long way for a good burger!
How about this fish? A yellow spotted Trevally.
This fish is called a honeycomb grouper. It was my favorite fish to see when we were snorkeling at Gili Lankanfushi.
This monster is a bluefin trevally. It was a tremendous fish, probably 11-12 pounds, and the best one caught at 
Of course we need to start our day with a meal, so let’s head to Madi, the main restaurant. There is a Japanese Restaurant, Tai that is across from our villa. Madi, and the bar which also serves lunches is in the main section of the resort.
Here you can see the layout of the property. This map also doubles as the evacuation and emergency map. Although if a tsunami hits, heaven help you! Our villa is number 301, located on the jetty on the lower left. 301-312 are the smaller water villas. 313-320 have a slightly larger layout. 111-124 are the smallest beach villas, I am not sure if they are a little smaller than our unit or not. 201-209 are the larger beach villas, they face the interior of the atoll. Remember that our side faces the Indian Ocean. The big spenders stay in the 400 series. Please, may I see the day when I can get a group of friends to join me in unit 406 (which appears to delightful that they have two of the same unit and number. Heaven help the person who wanders into the wrong unit after a long evening imbibing!) It appears that 101-110 have the stinkiest views. It appears that these units don’t have the plunge pools and canopies. Now if you are going to spend all the money to fly out here, and spend the tremendous bill to stay here you might as well go whole hog and spring for the units with at least a plunge pool! Now that I look at the map a little better, units 101-110 may house some of the managers.
Ah Ha! I see Steve at breakfast looking at this cell phone. Now just last night at dinner he accused me of being on my cell phone too much, checking to see how many likes and new followers that I have!
Like Gili Lankanfushi breakfast was buffet also. Steve and I have become quite the prima donnas now regarding chocolate croissants. We prefer the flatter ones that Gili Lankanfushi had. Every day there would be a different type of donut. Steve tried a couple. I was good and showed extreme restraint by only trying a danish and one of the ever changing breakfast breads each day. Insert smiley face here!
There was a big display of cut fruit. I missed the fruit chef from Gili and the ever changing lessons provided by playing the what kind of fruit is this ? game.
The cheese and meat display changed daily also.
For those who like yogurt in the morning, you have many choices.
The selection of juices rotated also, although there was always fresh orange juice.
I attempted to be really healthy the first morning and tried the green clean. It tasted just like you thought it would. However, it was surprisingly tasty! Not enough that we are going to buy a juice machine from Amazon when we get back home!
We started each morning of our stay here with a steaming cup of Cappuccino. Usually we would have two.
Still remembering the blueberry pancakes that I didn’t order on our way over when we flew on Qatar Airlines, I ordered the. blueberry pancakes. They were a little too heavy for my taste, but I give them an A+ for presentation!
I had actually requested one blueberry pancake, one scrambled egg , bacon and a rosti, but ended up with all of this food! Pancakes and a full English breakfast! I think that the chef only lets the plates come out of the kitchen a certain way. No half orders allowed!
Steve is sitting by the pool, thinking about his first day out fishing with his guide Craig. I’m busy taking different pool side camera shots. I think we ate breakfast every morning at that table or the one next to it.
Here you can see all the lounge beds by the beach. Spaced by twos, they were quite romantic. For large groups they would have six or eight in a row. Every day an attendant would put covers on the beds, and rolled towels facing just so.
If you wanted to you could sit in the interior of the restaurant. We preferred to sit outside. It never rained during a meal. There were ceiling fans under the thatched roofs. We just preferred to eat outside. There was rarely a bug to be seen.
More views of the pool.
We arrived after sunset, and this was the romantic view of the interior of our room. You can see the outside shower in the background of the picture. Here we also had the four poster bed with decorative mosquito net style draping like in Gili Lankanfushi.
Here we see the room in the daylight. A very clean, modern look. Nice wood walls, a bench at the foot of the bed where you can tie your shoes (if you were to put any one during your stay). In the box was Steve’s laundry. What a pretty presentation! There were goose neck laps with a high intensity light, that way you won’t annoy your partner, if you are a late evening reader. Outlets were conveniently placed on the walls by the end tables. No need for long extension cords, or plugs not fitting into floor sockets like some places we have been to. Persnickety person that I am, I found nothing to complain about.
The bathroom was more than good sized. You could have put another bed there! A deep soaking tub with bath salts provided. Twin vanities across from each other, not side by side; so you would get annoyed at how messy your partner was with stuff strewn all over the place. The room always had a tremendous number of towels available. On the floor you can see a scale. It was in kilos, so I can’t tell how much weight I have gained.
The last vanity view was of Steve’s. This is my mess. You can see I come prepared with my own emergency medical kit. Have I ever used the band aides, ace wrap or sewing kit? Never. I am lucky that Steve didn’t see this when did our final purge of unnecessary items in our luggage! Water bottles were left by staff on the vanity also. The water was safe to use for brushing your teeth, although it was recommended to drink the bottled water. To the right of the vanity is the dresser with lighted makeup mirrors. We used the area as another flat surface to hold my purse, sunglasses and other detritus.
Look what a good job we did covering up almost all available space with our stuff! I even managed to hang my pants on the chair!
A great view of the soaking tub. I’m not sure how deep it was as I haven’t taken a bath yet. As it is now really Monday and not Wednesday, and we leave Wednesday afternoon perhaps I shall try it out tonight. I sure have a lot of catch up to do for you!We’ll find out if there are bath crystals or bath bubbles supplied. Now to see if I can find a model to pose in the tub for me!
Here you see the shower on the left and the toilet on the right. I can’t tell you how long it took me to figure out that the doors swing both ways, and the bath mat won’t get stuck in the door if you swing the door toward you in the shower. I’m not quite as smart as I think I am after all!
Here we see Steve starting to put away his clothes in the closet. You have to be quick to take pictures before he starts unpacking!
Now we are all unpacked! Can you determine whose sides is whose? Hint, I wear the dresses in the family!
The shower had a rain forest head and a spray attachment. I’m not one for spray attachments, as I am a bit clumsy and might accidentally raise the sea levels, by getting water all over the place. The shower had a great ledge in it where Steve could lay his glasses when he took a shower. He is the only one I know who wears his glasses in the shower. My attitude is that you know what parts are dirty, and where to clean them, and how to do so. When we stayed at the Broadmoor I tried their steam shower with many shower heads. It was delightful
Here is the outdoor shower, all lit up at night. We tried it during the day time but couldn’t quite figure out which handle was for the hot water.
Plus our very own plunge pool! No, it doesn’t quite get any better than this! We even had two lounge chairs to lay about on if we wanted to sun ourselves!
You wanted a day time view also, didn’t you? In the background you see the spa area. Treatment rooms were in the little villas. Of course Steve and I had treatments. Wait until you see the treatment rooms!
Now for the day time view of the plunge pool. Sorry about the finger on the lower left.
This is the view from the cabana. It seems my fingers keep getting in the way! Our room faced the exterior of the atoll, you could see the waves from the ocean crashing into the outer atoll. As Steve says, the Indian Ocean, next stop Indonesia! Unlike Gili Lankanfushi, there wasn’t too much coral outside our villa. There was an increase in the ocean temperatures a few years ago that killed a lot of the coral. It has been growing back, so there is still beautiful water to explore for you scuba and snorkel enthusiasts! Come visit the Maldives! You won’t be disappointed! 