the MALDIVES: snorkelling!
 

my wife and i went to the maldives for our late honeymoon last year. thought i'd share a few pics. :mrgreen:

the first thing you see entering the water off the steps of our bungalow...
http://i690.photobucket.com/albums/v...g/P2170197.jpg

snorkelling around the resort bungalows/island.
http://i690.photobucket.com/albums/v...g/P2170201.jpg

http://i690.photobucket.com/albums/v...g/P2170208.jpg

trigger!
http://i690.photobucket.com/albums/v...g/P2170209.jpg

stag colonies!
http://i690.photobucket.com/albums/v...g/P2170219.jpg

1000s of chromis
http://i690.photobucket.com/albums/v...g/P2170222.jpg

whats this? brain? favia? ID please! its awesome!
http://i690.photobucket.com/albums/v...g/P2170235.jpg

t.max
http://i690.photobucket.com/albums/v...g/P2170237.jpg

squammy
http://i690.photobucket.com/albums/v...g/P2170246.jpg

i just added a trio of some sort of snapper to my 180 to remind me of this! these guys are so wicked!
http://i690.photobucket.com/albums/v...g/P2170256.jpg

WOW, Beautiful!

Man those are awesome. Maldives is a place on my bucket list but just geographically speaking I can't see anytime soon that I'll get there. That must have been one heck of a set of flights!

Congratulations on getting hitched BTW. :)

I'll bet in the back of your mind you were thinking 'frag of this, frag of that' :mrgreen:
Great shots

Wow, I need to get out there someday. That's amazing.

Now that's what a reef should look like! Awesome pics! Thanks.

WOW!!!:mrgreen:

now i know where I am going on my honeymoon....

Hey Shao which resort did you stay at and all these pics were taken snorkelling?

Wicked!

A little more detail on the location/resort would be awesome.

It's really nice seeing some brighter colors like we see in our tanks. That massive stag is gorgeous!

+1. I need a vacation.

Also, any more pictures? :)

nice enough to get married again

no

Thanks! yeah, it takes a long time to get there from Vancouver. no direct flights. but we stopped in asia first, so it made the flights a bit more bearable.

Because of its location, we were told barely any North Americans go there.

we stayed at the http://www.velassaru.com/ its a 15-20min boat ride from the main island. we also went to the sheraton, but left and went back to the velassaru after one night!

all the pics so far were taken while snokelling the "house reef" (just walk off the beach and into the water) in 2-5' depth of water only!

The Maldives is a huge chain of islands, and from the main island you take a boat or small plane to get to the resorts. each resort is on its own island.

i'll can give more details later. feel free to ask if you have any more questions.

i'll put up a few more pictures from the resort snorkelling, and also from a snorkel trip in the middle of the ocean. but i dont have many because my olympus underwater camera sprung a leak not half way into our honeymoon!
luckily i had transfered some pics onto the laptop already!
i did go out and buy a disposable underwater camera after that, but those pics dont come out very well at all.

these guys are awesome! there were always a bunch of baby black tips swimming around the shoreline. about 2' long only!
http://i690.photobucket.com/albums/v...g/P2170290.jpg

schoolin'
http://i690.photobucket.com/albums/v...g/P2170285.jpg

Nice pictures! What kind of camera/housing do you use?

I don't think I've ever seen coral colonies like that... I have got to go there!

i was using an Olympus tough waterproof camera. does a decent job. though it did leak, leaving me with no underwater camera for half my trip. they did replace it under warranty later.

wait till i get pics up of the ocean snorkelling... that will show you what a real sps reef looks like.

Weren't you tempted to acclimate some natives?

Can't wait to see pics of the real sps in the open ocean, get them up!

snorkel trip we took, 15-20 min boat ride from resort.
they drop you off in the ocean and guide you on a path following the current, the boat follows you :mrgreen:
http://i690.photobucket.com/albums/v...g/P2180371.jpg

http://i690.photobucket.com/albums/v...g/P2180369.jpg

http://i690.photobucket.com/albums/v...g/P2180352.jpg

http://i690.photobucket.com/albums/v...g/P2180328.jpg

where's Waldo? and by Waldo i mean the sea turtle!:lol:http://i690.photobucket.com/albums/v...g/P2180345.jpg

i was too slow to snap a pic of the eagle ray that glided by!

the canyon!


http://i690.photobucket.com/albums/v...g/P2180343.jpg

http://i690.photobucket.com/albums/v...g/P2180323.jpg

http://i690.photobucket.com/albums/v...g/P2180324.jpg

Gorgeous blue corals !!! Do you know what they are called ?

Well they sure know how to grow them in the Maldives then! Holy moly...

fantastic pictures thanks for sharing .My olympus did the same thing , there water proof untill you get them wet.

those are sps, acropora species.

yeah, the locking mechanisms leave something to be desired, especially with this type of application. on the flipside, the customer service was pretty good, they sent me a new replacement. though i much rather would have liked to take another thousand pictures snorkelling there!

Great photos mine are not so good, not that good with a camera.

I have been to the Maldives a few times, there is simply nothing comparible in my mind to the Atol's from landing in Male (pronouced Marl-Eh) and then catching your sea plane to the island, (Maldives air employ young Australian pilots, ours was piloted bare foot in shorts and tee shirt)

Anyone looking for an exotic holiday - Go - seriously go, its too amazing too miss!

The North Atol's have a greater showing of reef where as the South suffered a lot from the bleaching event back in the 90's but are recovering

My not so good shots

http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i1...Photo10_8A.jpg

http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i1...hoto18_16A.jpg

http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i1...Photo06_4A.jpg

http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i1...Photo03_1A.jpg

http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i1...oto10_8A-1.jpg

http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i1...to15_13A-1.jpg

http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i1...hoto26_24A.jpg

http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i1...to26_24A-1.jpg

We plan to go back next year. Will look into Velassaru.

For us its an easy hop, we fly from Ottawa the UK first see my parents then fly direct on a Sunday night at Midnight by Monarch airways direct into Male (11 hours)

Oh that doesn't sound so bad going it in that direction... Is there a good travel agency you'd recommend for packages?

Its not the cheapest but it is the most humane ;)

Air transat fly from Vancouver to Gatwick London and then you could do a couple fo days in London then fly on Monarch direct

Or

Fly emirates or Air Canada to Dubai from Canada and then its a 2 hour (I think) hop to Male' you can then also stop off in Dubai of you feel like it. Dubai airport terminal is like inner earth! One experience in itself.

I tend not to use travel agents, we put our own packages together, barter with the resorts, it also works out to book basic accomodation and request an upgrade when you get there, we did this for our first trip down the south Ari Atol. we got nice water bungalows ;) (the Geckos can be noisy at night on island)