It's a pity that the Maldives will have disappeared below the sea in a few years. They sit on the equator in the warm Indian Ocean and there are few places more idyllic, relaxing, or friendly.
Our chalet on Kurumathi Island stood on stilts in the lagoon. Steps led directly into the sea. Every evening the housekeeper would scatter flower-petals on our bed.
The diving was superb. There was none of that riding on the edge of a rubber dinghy for half an hour and getting seasick from petrol fumes. In the Maldives one sits in a grand boat that chugs sedately to the dive site, where you stand, someone helps you get your gear on in comfort, then it's a simple long stride into crystal-clear water of a constant 26ºC, so warm that I wore only a lycra wetsuit with no buoyancy: I needed no weight-belt.MY WHAT BIG TEETH YOU HAVE
For my most memorable dive there were just five of us, including the dive-master (actually, the "dive-mistress").
At our designated spot, where the seafloor was 60m below us, we dived straight down to 30m, the maximum one can go without additional safety measures or, in my case, extra training.
This depth is magical - often referred to as the "big blue" - because of a unique set of circumstances. The visibility was 25m, just about the maximum in sea water, which made both the surface and the seabed indiscernible. In addition, at this depth the light has dispersed and refracted so much that it appears to come from all directions, while the only part of the spectrum not yet absorbed by the water is the bit between blue and violet.
The overall effect was one of swimming in royal-blue ink, with only our bubbles to show which way was up or down. You really have to experience it to appreciate it.After finning gently for two minutes we stopped and formed a pod, all five of us holding hands and facing outwards.
Below us we could see the vague outline of five or six hammerhead sharks. As we watched, one of them swam up gently but directly, then took up orbit around us, his sticky-out eye checking us over.I shan't lie: a 5m predator at close quarters is scary, especially when not in one's natural element. It took all my nerve not to breathe so fast that I ran out of air and not to fart, which, as you may know, in a wetsuit has the effect of propelling you upwards like a Polaris missile. It was two minutes - although it felt much, much longer - then he left us, descending again to his pals below, satisfied that we posed no threat.
"Carry on. Mind you don't frighten the fish."..