Maldives, Day 1

Today is the first day of our Maldives vacation. We left this morning on a Qatar Airways flight that was supposed to depart at 815. We left closer to 9, but that's okay. As long as the dust and haze was in the rearview mirror, I was happy. Not the best flight I've ever been on. There were several open seats in first class, but not a single passenger was upgraded. What's the point of having 2nd-tier or 1st-tier elite status if the airline isn't going to upgrade anyone? They don't even let you check in and select seats in the bulkhead or exit row. Thankfully, the people who were supposed to be in the bulkhead row in front of us never showed up, so I was able to move up and give each of us our own row. The only downside was having to see the people across the aisle decide to change their toddler on the seat. Heading to the lavatory must've been too much trouble - 50 feet is obviously too far to walk - so they just took care of business on the seats. Lovely.

Anyway, once we arrived in Male, everything was smooth and easy. We were the first ones through immigration, our bags were the first ones out, and we walked across the arrivals area directly onto the dock where a boat awaited to zip us the 10 minutes across the water to our resort. The cool lemongrass-infused towels during the ride over just made things that much better. Ahhhhhh.

Leaving the airport

Once we arrived, we were taken into a little lounge area and given another cool towel and a small glass of coconut sorbet. I don't even like coconut and thought it was delicious. After some paperwork and an overview of the resort and the benefits of the package we had booked, we were on our way. I went to the dive shop to get set up for my diving for the week, and Heather went to the room to crack open the bottle of wine waiting for us. I think I got the better end of that arrangement. My dives are all set - the guys set me  up with a bin for all my gear, will have it assembled on the tank by the time I get there in the morning, and will wash, rinse, and hang it all to dry when we get back after each dive. Heather, meanwhile, got stuck drinking a lovely screwtop 2010 Sicilian syrah that would really be better served as vinegar several months from now.

During dinner, we got to watch five baby and juvenile blacktip reef sharks swimming in the water alongside the restaurant. Considering the water depth was only a foot or so, it was impressive to see the bigger ones in there meandering around. Hopefully I'll see a lot more of them out diving in the days to come.

Arriving at Kurumba

The Beach Bar