Maldives...Paradise...I still think it was a dream...

!!!! Warning!!! there are a lot of pics here.  

This was an amazing trip for April and I.  A secluded island in the Indian Ocean.  With only 35 rooms on the entire island, it felt like we were totally alone at times.  It was amazing that we could see more sea life off the hotels house reef than diving, not that the diving was not incredible.  This was my total definition of paradise.  Now scheming how to go back again!

 We took a small prop plane from the international airport to our small, 35 room island about 30 minutes away.  

 Small islands that we flew over.  They are really neat.  

 Welcome to the Island!  Stunning, secluded and very relaxing

 On our way to the first set of dives.  

 Look at me!  I am so pretty above and below the water!

 Stripy fish

 Still truly gorgeous with hot pink nails

 Purple Anemones  

 Green plate coral, they has enormous plate coral some bigger than us!

 So there are few things in the water that I enjoy more than nudibranches.  There are several, overall I have never seen so many in one place.  What was really nice was that we identified with the dive master and she spent tons of times helping us identify them.

 More plate coral

 Clown fish in an anemone

 Neat blue coral

 Really neat clam

 I think that this is a hawks-bill turtle.  It was really happy to follow us for a time.  

 This was a resident crane,  it would hang out around meal time and would be fed by the staff there.  

 This was the landscape of the island that was cut by small sandy paths.  

 View from the back porch of the room.  

 Another view from the back porch to the ocean.  

 Our back porch 

 This was just a few steps from the bungalow to the beach with our own private beach chairs.  

 Some really neat stag horn coral with blue tips

 Massive coral gardens just feet below the surface

 More landscape of the gardens there onsite.

 Lovebirds in paradise.  

 A view of our island coming to it after a dive

 Gorgeous island sunset

 Serene view from the beach to the dive shop

 Amazing view from the beach to the over the water tepanyaki restaurant

 Sandy feet, we did not wear shoes or sandals anywhere on the island, all the walkways were sand.

Amazing sunset.

 

 One of the island hopping prop planes

Walking around the island in the evening.

 Wonderful dinner at the tepanyaki restaurant, we were all alone and got excellent service.  The food was the best that we had ever had a tepanyaki place.  

 Coral with trigger fishes.  Second favorite underwater critters.

 Another amazing nudibranch!

 Vast mountain of coral

 Amazing clown fish in anemone.

 One of my favorite nudibranches

 Moray Eel coming out of the rock

 Beautiful coral with fishes

 Close up on the moray eel.  

 Doing the chicken dance underwater?

 Our island paradise

 More staghorn coral

 Loved the extra blue tips on the back coral

 Huge shell

 These next few pics are the from the house reef at the hotel.  Stunning?  We thought so

 Such a happy couple, amazing to be there together.  Love was everywhere

 White tip reef sharks just off the house reef.  There were several of them that kept swimming by

 Going out for a night dive.  Just at sunset with a supremely tranquil sea

 Dogfish at night

 Sometimes really ugly is the best 

 Flora at night

 Another amazing nudibanch

 The next sets are of out snorkelling trip with the manta rays.  There were about 20-30 of them at this one spot.  

 Two of my favorite pics with their mouths open feeding

I would dive down below to take pics of their bellies.  Then I uploaded them to a foundation that tracks and counts the manta rays.  They were able to identify them.  One of which had not been seen for over 5 years.  If one had not been previously identified we could have named it, but they were all identified.  Overall we were able to help track 10 different rays.  Really fun opportunity.

This trip still seems like a dream.  We really had the most amazing time together.