We should start this day early if we want to see something in
Male, like the Islamic Centre.
We’ll be in a hotel just in front of the terminal for ferries to the
airport, the ones we must use to take our hydroplane flight to Kuredu.
It is the paradisiac island we’ll be relaxing in for the next days.
We’re up at 7 AM, trying to be at bed as much as
possible after the late arrival last night. While my wife is getting
ready I go out for a quick walk around. I don’t leave our street along
the sea so I don’t manage to find Islamic Center. Somehow, I do see the
ticket boxes for the ferry and get two tickets by 10 Rufiyaa each.
We got two vouchers at hotel desk to use in the restaurant
for breakfast, so we do it and get the baggage before checking out and
get the ferry, which is getting full of people at this moment.
Domestic flights in Maldives have softer
procedures than the ones we’ve used in airports. We’re pointed from Trans Maldivian Airways desks to an
area with a bunch of small stands as the place to locate counter 59.
The man in charge of that counter gets us into a bus going to the other
side of the island.
Once there we’re immediately addressed to Kuredu’s lounge.
The whole process has taken less than 15 minutes and now we get our
reward. We’re offered food and drinks but we only take water as we’ve
just got our breakfast some minutes ago. We’re alone at this lounge and
finally prefer some berth outside than being inside with the air
conditioning. Here we have the sea in front of us with a row of
hydroplanes. We’ve also got a bag with some gifts and a cold towel to
refresh us.
We still will have to wait for one hour before be
called to board, but we’re fine resting part of what we’ve missed last
night. Then, we’re addressed to small room with seats in front of the
door to outside, where there is the wooden walkway to the planes we
could see from our berths.
The plane is small and we take the first windows
seats just after the pilots. The idea has always been to enjoy the view
of the atolls from the air, with their infinite tones of blue. I’ve
already read about how these islands are a barefoot paradise, but it’s
still surprising seeing how the pilot is driving without any shoes.
This demonstrates setting a shoe shop in Maldives wouldn’t be a good
business.
When the plane is going down to the sea we’re
announced we’ve arrived to Komandoo, another island belonging to the
group, but I need to confirm it with the pilot as I’ve seen an
identical view of the island from the plane than the one I checked for
Kuredu in Google Earth. The explanation comes later, when the plane
goes up just for a minute and then down again to the sea for Kuredu.
Both islands are close each other and the one I’ve seen before
identifying it as Kuredu, was indeed our destination, which we’ve just
reached.
We’re welcome by part of the staff playing drums
and we’re assigned a boy as steward who takes us to a bar to explain
briefly how the resort works while taking a welcome cocktail. Then, the
all-inclusive bracelets are set on our wrists and he tells us we need
to wait two more hours to get our room.
Two hours can be spent easily here between the
pool bar and the lunch buffet. With some other wait we’re finally in
our bungalow by 4 PM. Here we find the baggage that was taken at Male
airport.
The bungalow is superb, with the bathroom
partially at open air. Our bodies ask for resting, but we want also
enjoy as soon as possible what we have in front of us so we take our
benches to a place where we can have sun or shadow from the palm trees
at will and rest there.
I soon take my snorkel equipment to attend the call of the
sea. This beach is shallow and, I guess because of that, the water is
hot. At the moment I take a look underwater I find out the real
paradise in this place: colorful fishes, some quite big, are all around
me. If I had any doubt about if being in the same place day after day
could be tedious for me it is now off the table as I could spend all my
days looking this life.
Somehow, this shallowness makes me to practically be
crawling for it, but I can still see great fishes, like a Picasso
triggerfish and a lionfish. Sometimes I must to come back to reality by
standing with the water under my knees and check our bungalow is just a
few meters there because it seems unbelievable to me. With my
explanations Eva comes to the sea quickly to check what is underwater
is real. But not everything is great here, you cannot walk by this
shallow beach on barefoot and, although the white sand at the beach is not pointing to that, in the water we must use our snorkeling shoes.
We’ve
spent the rest of the day in “our” beach and we only leave it after
watching our first sunset here. With the night a heron comes to our
place to take advantage of the low tide. We need to dinner too and go
to the restaurant as the last task of our first day in paradise.
although the white sand at the beach is not pointing to that, in the water we must use our snorkeling shoes.