I am fortunate enough to have some wonderful friends who live in the Maldives and invited us and our friends for what was probably the best week of my life. My boyfriend has gone about 3 times now, but because I was always working was never able to join 😦

This year because I quit my job and was living in Goa I was finally able to go.

The Yacht

First off, check out this yacht! 50 meters, 3 deck levels, hot tub on the front main deck, 2 full bars, dining room, movie theatre, and sleeps up to 18 guests (not including the crew).

Luxury is an understatement. Here are some pictures of the interiors… The living room on The Crown is like the size of my entire NYC apartment.

Front Deck

Living Room

Dining Room

Bedroom

-with 180degree panoramic views

Every room has a private bathroom. It’s impossible not to relax in a private jacuzzi with these views!

The Trip

We landed in Malé. Which is the capital and main island of the Maldives. Well, technically you land on a separate island next to Malé, the island is too small to fit an airport! We had some time to kill until our next flight, so took a water taxi to the main island. We walked around and bought a SIM card (always the first thing I do whenever I land in a new country). I had service almost the entire week, even in the middle of the ocean! The streets are tiny, cars were going both ways down the roads, I was in awe that that 2 cars could fit next to each other on the tiny roads.

We went back to the airport and checked in for our propeller plane flight to the south. There are also seaplane flights to the south, planes that take off and land on the water. They are super expensive, maybe next time when I am not out of work we will take one, they looked pretty cool – I know poor me, a trip to the Maldives without a ride in an amphibious plane ;-P

The prop planes are extremely temperamental. Upon check in first they weigh your luggage, then they ask you to step on the scale too. I covered my eyes and did not want to see what 3 months of heavy Indian gravy and baskets of naan had done to my waistline. The plane needed to be perfectly balance… for safety. And as this was going down, a storm was rolling in- great. The flight was one of the scariest I have ever been on, a tiny prop plane, in the middle of the ocean, flying though a storm, FML. At one point the plane just dropped out of the sky like the first drop on a roller coaster.

Here is a photo I took from the plane during sunset right before we flew through the storm.

We landed safely and our friends picked us up on the dive boat to take us through choppy waters to The Crown.

We got to The Crown, and the situation was IRL Pirates of the Caribean.. that storm scene. The boat was bobbing and thrashing through the waves, unlocked cabinets were flying open and everytime I tried to take a step I ended up moving in the opposite direction. I felt like it was Junior year prom and I was struggling to get my footing in high heel shoes drunk off of Malibu and Hypnotic. Shit, was this how the week was going to be?

No. Joke was on us. Only 1 of the anchors were dropped, they dropped the second anchor and the boat stabilized to a soothing rock.

We had made it to the south! For the next week we would be slowly making our way back to Malé. Each day waking up to a new view, exploring new islands, and doing 2-3 dives per day, never diving the same spot twice. Talk about spoiled.

Here are some of the highlights of our trip.

Our Squad!

Our amazing squad and Maldives fam – seriously some of the nicest and kindest people in the world.

How insane is that water?!

The guy in the life jacket is our friend Nathan, and he doesn’t know how to swim. But, for his birthday the dive master took him down for an exploratory scuba dive- because all you really need to be able to do is sink to scuba, and Nathan had that part covered.

The freshest fish you will ever eat

The boys went out fishing and caught a rainbow runner. One of our other friends on the boat who is a professional chef prepared it into a ceviche. I was told it was amazing (no fish for me).

They also caught a tuna, and that night there was fresh sashimi for dinner. Not even an hour old! I was very tempted to throw away the past 10years of no animals on my fork to try it, but couldn’t bring myself to take a bite. Poor fish.

That’s ok though, there were a million other things for me to eat. Each day we were served amazing buffet style meals with plenty of vegetarian and vegan options.

Views from a private island right after a quick rain shower

Getting from The Crown to a private island

Scuba Diving!

I had been meaning to get my scuba licence for a while. But, because of my crazy work schedule I never had enough time in one place to get it done. There were 3 of us on the boat who didn’t have our licenses so we all took the course together. I couldn’t imagine a better place to learn.

Our dive master Ali was great. I was super afraid after a kind of shady experiences at the Great Barrier Reef in Cairns, Australia while I was studying abroad. I may or may not have paid a guy to take me down and been given these instructions “keep breathing so your lungs don’t explode, pop your ears so your ear drums don’t explode, and you should remember to blink so your eyeballs don’t pop out, let’s do this, off you go”. No other info like how deep we were going, how long we were going for, what to expect – nothing. Definitely not that safest decision of my life, and it left me weary of trying diving again in the future. Yea, I was YOLOing, before YOLO was a thing.

In our course Ali explained everything – every situation, scenario and what to do in it, how everything worked, and then we also did drills to practice. By the end of the week not only did I feel completely at ease under the water, I was feeling like a scuba pro. I went from literally not letting Ali let go of my hand, to swimming around solo like a mermaid.

Some highlights from learning to scuba

Literally, all of us were speechless from the rays, turtles, and hundreds of fish we saw in our first 20mins. There is no shortage of aquatic life in the Maldives and there is never a bad dive. Every dive I didn’t go on gave me serious FOMO.

This was one of my first dives! Here I am floating away, and Ali is pulling me back down. I had a lot of trouble at first with buoyancy. Which for new divers is totally normal. Over to the left of the photo is Phill, another new diver. He got the hang of it much quicker than me.

Underwater fun! This is Adam, he was new to diving also.

But first, let me take a selfie- William and me. I think this was on my second dive. Ali is out of the shot still holding my hand.

And by the end of the week, I was night diving with sharks! Experience level – pro. But, seriously this was terrifying. Not so much the sharks, they are well fed and friendly. What was scary was the complete and total darkness. I am still so proud of myself for completing this dive.

Pro Photos

I personally did not take these photos – I was just trying to control my buoyancy and stay alive. These are some magnificent photos from our friends’ dives. I saw all of these underwater creatures except for the whale shark. But, now I have something to look forward to seeing the next time!

Whale shark

Clown fish

Rays

Sharks

Sea Turtles

Interested in experiencing the Maldives?

If you are interested in more info about The MV Crown or any of the other boats in the fleet check out the below site.

MV CROWN

Or email William at william@submaldives.com

Until next time!