February 18, 2008: On an island in the sun

On the move again. About a month ago, I exchanged a couple of emails with a French-Canadian base leader in the Maldives about an opening he had. After an early morning interview (two hours after which I spotted my first-ever dugong, I'm sure it was a sign) and another email or two, I had accepted a position with Sub Aqua (the same company I worked for two years ago in Egypt) at the Conrad (formerly the Hilton) hotel on Rangali island in the Maldives, one of the posher of the very posh resorts in this archipelago of over 1000 paradisiac islands (in the middle of the Indian Ocean, well off the west coast of India).

After a day in air transit purgatory, the cheapest ticket I could find involving stops and/or transfers in Bahrain, Dubai and Colombo, I made it to my hotel in Male some time after 2 a.m. Up the next morning at 7 a.m. to re-pack and grab a bite to eat before my 9 a.m. meeting with one of the local admin staff to get my mandatory AIDS test and chest x-ray at the hospital. A few hours later I was in the airport with Tobias, an old Sub Aqua Egypt colleague who is now working here and was returning to the island from holidays the same day as my arrival. We always say that the diving world is a small one. It was great to catch up.

When it was finally time to board the air taxi, I grabbed a spot by the window (hard not to have a window seat, really) and pulled out my camera during the flight like all the other tourists. It's pretty sweet, flying over all these little reefs and white sandy beaches surrounded by postcard-blue water. I hope it's going to be even sweeter living on one for a year.

Leaving Male, the island city:






Coming in for a landing:

January 20, 2008: Dugong!

Woo hoo!

After over a year of diving in the Red Sea, and over a dozen dives in a bay actually inhabited by dugongs (and where everyone but me seems to find them), I finally spotted my first one. Near the end of a dive, nowhere near where any dugong should be hanging out, she just cruised on over in about 5 metres of water as me and my group were swimming along back towards our exit point in the reef. I looked over to my left and nearly had a heart attack when I saw the two-metre long beast just gliding along a few metres away from me, looking at me with her beady little eye and patiently waiting to get noticed. Afraid she wouldn't stay, I could hardly tear my eyes away long enough to get the attention of my divers (who all nearly surfaced in their surprise). But our dugong was in the mood for a bit of fun; she circled around us a couple of times, pumping her whale tail as we stared in wonder and awe. We hung out long enough for our photograher to get a few shots off (the photo is courtesy of him), but eventually, and extremely reluctantly, I had to end the party thanks to the group's dwindling air supply (I considered staying down until they were out of air and making them snorkel in, but I wasn't sure how well that would go down). Sigh... Oh well, now that I've seen a dugong, I can leave Egypt and head for the Indian Ocean and the Maldives. No dugongs there, but mantas galore and the occasional whale shark to boot. Sweet!