DESTINATIONS — INDIA & THE INDIAN OCEAN
High hopes: flyboarding at Sun Siyam Irufushi
Rajabai Clock Tower
Anyone for fish?: underwater dining at Conrad Maldives Rangali Island
Submarine style:
explore underwater at Velaa Private Island
Huvafen Fushi has an underwater spa, so guests can watch marine life mid-massage, and at sister Per Aquum resort Niyama there’s an underwater club, Subsix, for champagne and tunes with sub- aquatic sights. At Conrad Maldives Rangali Island, diners at the underwater Ithaa restaurant can eat caviar with a fishy audience. The scuba diving in the region
can be utterly spectacular, and some hotels have unique features. Premier Holidays flags up Vivanta by Taj – Coral Reef as the only property in the islands to have its own house shipwreck.
When The Small Maldives Island
Company opens Amilla Fushi in November, guests will not only be able to enjoy complimentary motorised and non-motorised watersports, but also discover a ‘Blue Hole’ dive site within swimming distance of the beach. Divers swim in at five metres and out again at 15 metres, discovering red-toothed triggerfish, snappers, and hawksbill turtles on the way, with a good chance of bumping into the resident guitar shark on the way out. The Residence Maldives escaped the worst of the 1988 El Nino, and
as a result has an untouched coral ecosystem hiding underwater. The hotel’s dive centre offers all sorts of Padi courses so clients can discover marine life including five species of sharks, dolphins, turtles, manta and eagle rays. New to the programme are an underwater digital photography course (from $400 including camera rental) and fluo night diving, where guests scuba with special torches and mask filters to see
fluorescent coral and fish invisible during daylight hours, from $169. Keen divers can even tie the knot beneath the waves now Anantara Kihavah Villas has launched underwater weddings. If a scuba ceremony seems too daunting, there’s the option of the hotel’s underwater wine cellar and restaurant instead. For non-divers who want to experience the world beneath the waves, Velaa Private Island has a ‘semi-submarine’, which can take two guests and a pilot to depths of five metres without the need to wear a helmet or mask. A 30-minute trip costs $395 plus taxes. TW
Surfers’ paradise: Yin Yang, Laamu Atoll
28 August 2014 —
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