Maldives - Day 9

I am still nursing the sunburn today but couldn't resist a snorkel off the back deck after breakfast. It was just after low tide & the sea life was plentiful. We even saw a couple of black tip reef sharks! All that snorkelling made us tired so a nap was in order until about 12pm when we moseyed down to the Anchorage Bar for a leisurely drink before our afternoon excursion commenced at 1330....we were going on a trip to snorkel with turtles & stingrays.

The excursion crew welcomed us aboard their traditional dhoni & ran us through the safety checks before informing us that due to murky conditions it was best for us not to visit the turtles today, they instead would be taking us to ' Fish Point' before we headed to the stingray site. Well, what a surprise awaited us at Fish Point! It was a massive natural aquarium that was located on the edge of another island just where it dropped off into an abyss that was the Indian Ocean. The conditions were perfect & the water visibility was astounding - crystal clear; we could see a good 20m in every direction. The fish were incredible & so plentiful. There were sharks, angelfish, grouper, parrotfish, so many species of butterflyfish, wrasse, surgeonfish, clownfish, anemonefish, triggerfish, pufferfish, trevally, damselfish, napoleonfish, flyingfish, pennantfish, bream, eels, bannerfish, cowfish (they had a unicorn like horn), emperor, snapper, unicornfish, firefish, batfish & sweetlip, just to name a few! It blew our minds & was the best snorkelling we have experienced on our journeys so far. After spending a good 40 minutes here we took a 10 minute boat ride to the stingray spot. Here we saw a few massive stingrays in amongst the schools of fish & Paul & Richard spotted a moray eel too. The GoPro footage is awesome!

Dinner tonight at Sand Coast again. It was delicious!Read more