Sharks in Paradise

I'm back in Abu Dhabi in the middle of my parents settling into the apartment. I'm actually posting this from an internet cafe across the street from the apartment. The Maldives resort was amazing. Gorgeous location, the small island totally owned by the resort. The service I thought was superb, although Taylor, the jaded world traveler, was not as impressed as I was. This is the kind of service I had: I decide to sit out on the wooden deck / bar area overlooking the lagoon. As soon as I walked out, a staff person came out and wiped some rain off my chair and brought out a cushion. Then he took my drink order, a soda with lime. They brought out a tray with a glass with fresh lime juice and a small bottle of soda water. The bottle of water had been opened, but just enough to save me the trouble of breaking the seal on it. The glass was adorned with a small lime. Payment is great- just give them your room number.

The last full day we were there was pretty busy. Taylor took wakeboarding lessons, and I rode in the boat and watched him while catching some rays. We're both really tan now. In the afternoon, we chartered a speedboat out to one of the other islands and snorkled out along the reef drop off. They must have set Finding Nemo out in this part of the world oceans becuase I kept seeing the fish they used in the movie. Clownfish in Anemonies, those blue fish, starfish, and mostly fish I've no idea what they're called. Tons of fish and coral. I'm swimming next to Tay along the reef drop off and taylor suddenly makes a "mmmm!" (danger danger!) noise into his mouthpeice. I look up and see a 9' shark swimming in the opposite direction parallel to us over the drop off, maybe 15-20 feet away.

Its very strange, I was totally calm about the whole thing, but just very cautious. Not a trace of panic at all. I swam slowly over to dad, and pantomimed to him I - see - shark using the steve martin one handed shark symbol. Dad makes a size with his hands about 2 feet apart. I shake my head and throw my arms wide open. Dad's eyes pop. He goes off to get mom's attention and we all swim a little closer in to the reef and the shore away from the drop off. Off the reef, we see a group of stingrays glide through the water and up the side of the reef. A 4' shark swims with them. Dad said he saw another 6 foot shark swimming parallel to him there too. So we headed in and ended our snorkling a little early. Speedboated back to the island. I did some more snorkling with dad in our little lagoon and a little beyond the waterbreak. Our island was surprisingly diverse too, with a stingray of our own, zebrafish, coral, and tiny fish which clean the others and hide in the coral. We swam a little farther out to the drop out and dad saw another shark, even bigger than the one we saw at the other island, so we hugged the waterbreak and then I went in and puttered around the lagoon for awhile. Our last dinner on the island was the seafood grill out on the beach.

All in all, it was a really relaxing place. The last few days I pretty much wore my bathing suit everywhere and went barefoot. Drank my weight in lime sodas.

Now I'm back in Abu Dhabi and going on the desert safari with Tay tonight. Dubai tomorrow. More later.