Paradise

That is exactly what our trip to the Maldives was...paradise.  Micah and I were also very excited that our friends Dan and Heather decided to join us on our trip.  We arrived at the Male airport on Sunday February 27.  From there our dive boat picked us up to take us to our larger liveaboard boat. One of the first things they did was take our shoes.  Thats right, no shoes for the entire week!!  On a "liveaboard dive trip" all you do is eat, dive, relax, dive, eat, dive, relax, eat, sleep, wake up and do it all over again.  I think you have to be a pretty avid diver to really enjoy this type of trip which we are so we LOVED it!

The boat we were on was called the "Ocean Dancer".  This boat is apart of the Dancer fleet which is a very well known and reputable dive operation.  Our boat was everything I expected and more.  We had great outdoor relaxing space on the front of the boat which is where we spent most of our time.  Our room was big enough for what we needed and a full size bathroom.  The food was excellent and I rarely had time to even feel hungry before meals.  Here are some pictures from our boat:

Hallway to our rooms. 

Inside living area

Our favorite outdoor hangout. Notice the 3 iPads. 

Ocean Dancer has its own separate dive boat that followed us around and stored all of our dive equipment for the week. The dive boat was FULL service.  Every morning we would get up and walk onto the dive boat and all of our equipment would be set-up and ready to go.  I never once hooked up my own regulator or anything.  Also, the moment I would have any trouble getting my stuff on such as my wetsuit there would be a guy there to help me.  I was very impressed with the service on the dive boat.

"Get ready to Jump!"

Jumping off the boat

Now for the actual diving.  It was...I'm having a hard time thinking of a word to accurately describe.  It was one of those moments when you look around at 60-100 ft. under water and wonder how people can believe that there is not a creator.  That all that appeared by accident or "big bang".  That being said, I guess I would say the diving was incredible.  On most dives we could't look anywhere without seeing hundreds to thousands of fish.  It was also the best coral life I have ever seen. The colors in the coral were amazing. 

We were also very lucky in seeing some large life such as whale sharks and manta rays.  On one dive we went to a "cleaning station" which is a place where Mantas go to get cleaned by other fish.  Once we were by the cleaning station we all just held on to the rock coral and watched as the Mantas were cleaned and swam RIGHT over us.  Pictures cannot capture the size of these animals.  Try to look at the other fish swimming around them.  It literally felt like a car swimming over us. 

Whale sharks are very large as well and they just seemed to swim along at their own pace.  Sometimes coming closer to the surface so that while we were snorkeling we could get good pictures.  In the first picture I am swimming down to get a picture and someone else snapped a picture of me doing it.

When we weren't diving we were hanging out on the boat chatting to people.  We met two other couples that we  got along with well and had some fun entertaining conversations.  Thanks so much to Greg and Chris, Brad and Kim for making our trip one that we won't forget.  I think we all hope to see you again sometime...maybe on another liveaboard???  Both couples are way more experienced divers than us and we ended up having to borrow stuff from them often such as liquid skin band aids, ear drops, and even a camera.  Yes you read that right.  I lost my dive camera to the big blue about half way through our trip.  Thats enough about that...  Amazingly, Greg was brave enough to let me use his smaller camera for the rest of the trip. That really helped me not be so depressed about loosing my camera. Thanks Greg.  Hope you guys don't mind that I stole the picture of you 4. 

Kim, Brad, Chris, Greg

Although we never really left the boat we went onto land a few times.  Sometimes we just walked the beach and returned to the boat.  One night our crew actually set-up dinner on the beach and we had a great romantic meal on a deserted beach. They even made a whale shark sand castle. 

Our crew

I could say so much more about this trip and post a million more pictures but I think I've rambled on long enough.  If you want to see more pictures follow this link:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2461192&id=17101285&l=ffb623210f

~Steph