Days 21 & 22- Male, Maldives

Few people ever make it this far out into the Indian Ocean to this little known atoll: with the lowest elevation in the world (peak of 7.5 feet!) and perhaps the most idyllic combination of color, sand, sea, and weather.  

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Well, the weather part...did not 

live up to the legend for these travellers!

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Leaving the packed city of Male behind... on choppy seas

...for this, on Dhonveli Island

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We had time for two excursions on two different days, after two days of sailing to reach this port. The first day, we were transported by speedboat (25 minutes by boat from Male) 

 so exciting!

-out to Dhonveli Island, which is a small island with nothing on it but the Cinnamon Dhonveli Maldives Resort.

The weather was windy and threatening thunderstorms all afternoon. But even without that perfect blue sky, we got an easy feel for the isolated idyllic potential here! After a brief swim in the refreshing lagoon, Mom and I set out to walk the perimeter and find out what else was waiting for us 
on Dhonveli.

Dhonveli Explorers

Sea grape canopies and freshly raked white sand corridors take you from one piece of paradise to the next.

 These perfect rows of "floating" huts (on stilts) can't help but put you at peace, with even the thought 

of a perfect getaway here

-climb down a ladder off your back porch and
right into the crystal clear waters

On the north side of the island, the surf was kickin. 

We followed the elevated boardwalk over tidal pools with scintillating shallow coral beds ...

I spotted two big beautiful parrotfish swooping in, 

definitely excited about -something-

and a worker walked by and told me they were after this octopus: 

See the octopus here?
He's camouflaged himself to look just like
one of those coral rocks.

Where there isn't sand, it's solid coral pieces underfoot.  Soooo much dead coral washed up! I can only IMAGINE what the snorkelling will reveal tomorrow!

Vignettes like this, all over the island

This is along the north wall of the island!  
(looks like the surf really pounds out here, at times!)
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After the glympse of beauty on Day One, I woke up early and incredibly psyched for Day Two's snorkelling excursion.

But on the tender from the ship to the pier, there were three lightning strikes, strongwind, and rain. 
The snorkelling and all water excursions were cancelled.

I cried real tears.

Of course no one can control the weather!  
But the disappointment was overwhelming.  
To come this far, never to return, and not get to explore the legendary underwater world here...
was relatively heartbreaking.

Well, time to make lemonade with these rainy lemons 
we've been given.  

Since Mom had not signed up for the snorkelling, I was solo. So now what to do? I looked around and quickly attached myself to an easygoing, great couple from England: Jane and Neil. The three of us walked around the city of Male for a couple of hours, looking for whatever surprises we could find.  -First, I had to change into a long skirt and cover my arms. Male is 100% Muslim, so following the dress code for women is tantamount.

following behind my confident Male exploring partner, Lynn....

passing Hotel Memory...

This city is the big island capitol of the Maldives, and by far the most densely packed community I've ever seen.  From the water, that's the effect you get.  It is shore to shore, edge to edge, high rises. Walking the streets, you really feel and see how crowded and vertical they are going, continuing to add to the stacks every day, it looks like!

these vertical stacker builders were happy to stop and pose

a local fisherman, with our ship in the distance

 Tiny Maldivians at school

Commercialism is alive and well, hundreds of miles from any other civilization 

Everything- but the seafood- must be imported! There's no place to grow food.

stacks 

more stacks.  CLOSED. MEN.

Neil, taking shelter from the rain at a nice city park along the pier (our ship in the distance)


Shortly after this, we DID see a pod of the famous Maldives dolphin "flying" by, jumping the waves, in the distance!  
Ten points for me! Score! But no photo.

trying out one of the crazy boat net chairs in the rain...drinkin' up the lemonade, 
on this gray, drizzly day in the Maldives.
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Our ITINERARY!

Day 18- 1.22.17- Mahi, Seychelles

And here in the Seychelles, we are only 4 degrees south of Equator! We just got a small taste of these divine islands today.  We were in port here only from about 8am until 5pm.

 We had our first semi-rainy day.  

Showers just threatened most of the day; 

 there were no big downpours.

Here's our view from the ship on our morning approach!

  

I did a "Coral Cruise", which took us on catamaran out to Moyenne Island, where we did a combination of snorkeling, hand feeding the fish, and viewing the reef in a semi-submarine viewer.

the hand feeding of the fish consisted of tossing them white bread and watching them swarm...

a look inside the semi-submarine viewer. 

Our guide told us, the marine life is so plentiful, that if you go to prison here, they serve only fish Monday through Saturday. Sunday, maybe beef or chicken. 

Thanksgiving: turkey. Otherwise, fish!

I didn't see any scorpion, or red gargonian coral fans; the reefs are actually in recovery from being bleached, 

a result of higher than normal ocean temperatures. 

It was a lovely venture, although we were in the water less than an hour.

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With the couple of hours we had left in port, I wanted to see something more of the Seychelles. So I set off on foot, alone, to walk the 1.2 miles to the town center.

This was the only famous Seychelles Tortoise I saw!

Empty Sunday streets

This was a surprise!- Hindu Temple

Not sure what he's looking at- love the color and the gesture

Beautiful, tropical promenade walk along the main street

(Seychelles "pigeons"- pretty fancy!)

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The whole time I'm flitting about the Seychelles, back at home, history is being made. A revolution of sorts is beginning, in reaction to the new President Trump and the GOP government and its policies, undoing the progress made. It's like we're taking one step forward and two steps back.
  Watching it from afar is unsettling, scary,
and energizing all at once.

Here is one of millions of photos generated from the NYC march.  My friend Katice Helinski Miranda, her husband Jose, their kids and friends shared this one:

So, here are some of my reflections on this day:

 The biggest thing this experience is doing is, opening my world wide open. I mean, we did stand in a slave trade that processed over 60,000 African slaves at its peak. And I cried, big ugly cries mixed with sweat...you could FEEL the pain in that place. It was palpable. Then, we turned and walked the streets in that same town, where Muslims walk hand in hand with Christians, everyone gets along, their differences do not matter.  In CapeTown, where the memories of Apartheid are still so raw, whites now mix with blacks and coloreds and everyone is trying SO hard just to make things BETTER.  There's no division, only efforts toward growth.  And these countries are sooo OLD.
America is just getting started.
We're just a baby in this world story...
I do believe that it's all part of the Plan, and that we ARE supposed to grab our tools, choose our task.  We ARE the ones that have to ask.  It's a beautiful scary thing to watch -from afar- but from this vantage point, after lots of crying and anger, whatever revolution will take place, there is hope.