Maldives

We woke up to a perfect day for snorkelling: no wind, the tide was out and the sun was just rising. The House Reef is located on the east side of Rangali island, marked by an orange bouy. The best way out there is to follow a channel the leads straight to the reef. Otherwise, on either side the reef will be to high to swim over. If the channel is too hard to find in the rising sun, park yourself outside room 225 and then make a bee line to the bouy.

Throughout the channel the reef fishes are spectacular, but until you hit the house reef you will see large schools of fish, colourful coral and if your lucky like us, a White Tip reef shark.

After our early morning snorkel we had earned out breakfast at the Atoll Market. The rest of the day was spent hanging out in front of our Beach Villa.

Later that night, we had dinner at the Mandhoo Spa restaurant. This was a third visit, and everytime we are astounded by the food and service. Once again, Ostrich was ordered along with a Crab salad and a Rainbow runner (fish) dish. On all three visits, we always ordered three entree size dishes to share instead of the usual entree and main each. We found three entree’s was enough to satisfy us.

Afterwards, we had a cocktail each during happy hour at the Rangali Bar and then stumbled our way back to our Beach Villa. When we arrived, we found a very pleasant surprise on our bed. Idrees our room cleaner had created a heart shape out of the bed sheet and outlined it with bougainvillea, frangipani and hibiscus flowers! It actually took us 5 minutes to realise the decorations on the bed, since we just rushed inside the villa and busied ourselves getting ready for bed.

Only two photos today, of the flower decorations on the bed: Picasa Web.

At 11am today Jenesse and I went to Ithaa the undersea restaurant for their “cocktail hour”. This involved a tour of their 9m acrylic tunnel that has a 270° panoramic view. On each side were reefs and their tropical fish. Today’s weather during the day made for perfect viewing of the undersea life while sipping on Champagne.

The rest of the day was spent lazying around our Beach Villa and a little siesta in the afternoon. By late afternoon, the monsoon rains had arrived very suddenly. Perfect one minute, then very windy and showery the next. Our planned dinner at the Koko Grill outdoor teppanyaki restaurant was cancelled due to the uncertain conditions. We didn’t mind at all, since our alternate plan was to go back to the Mandhoo Restaurant. Besides it saved us US$400!

The Mandhoo lived up to its reputation. Once again we had Ostrich (with Thai green risoto), but also ordered tiger prawns and lobster medallion dishes.

See the pics of Ithaa on our Picasa web album.

We started today off with breakfast on Rangali island in the Vilu Restaurant. The selection was a smaller version of the Atoll Market and the hot breakfast was a lar carte. The table setting was a lot nicer with fancy pants coffee mugs and plates. Think tomorrow we will stick to the buffet style breakkie at the Atoll.

The weather has really fined up and now its so hot. By midday we decided to walk across the foot bridge and take out a peddle boat to frollick in the lagoon. The foot bridge was so hot it was like walking on hot coals. We got some relief by walking the thin shadow line from the the rails and at the half way spot we cooled our feet on the jetty.

The peddle boat was a bit of a work out! Despite no wind, the waves made our progress slow on the way back to the beach. That’s our exercise for the week. Glad we pulled out of the Kokoda Challenge this year. We reckon we have eaten and drunk so much that any training beforehand would have been for nothing.

Thankfully we hitched a ride back on a golf cart to avoid the hot bridge again.

Later that night we went for “dinner” at the Wine Bar where we had a course on Wine versus Chocolate. The host presented three different wines, chocolate and pastries in a sunken room full of wine bottles on all four walls. The menu was:

Dominican Republic chocolate with 2005 Muscat De Beaumes De Venise (Domaine De Durban, Rohan, France) and a pastry chocolate and pear consome. The Muscat and chocolate was a fantastic combination, but wasn’t fussed on the pastry.

Cuba chocolate with 2005 Torbreck “Juvenilles” (Borrossa Valley, South Australia) and a pastry chocolate praline mille-feuille. This was all good and I took my time savouring the taste and combinations.

Tanzanian chocolate with a Sherry Pedro Ximénez (Bodegas de Idalgo “Napoleon”, Jeres, Spain) and a pastry parfait opera. The Sherry was nice with the rich dark Tanzanian chocolate and the parfait was also very rich. This was Jenesse’s favourite.

We walked out of the wine bar and strolled around the island to watch the moon rise over the atoll. The richness of the chocolate, wine and pastry was taking its toll on our empty bellies. A quick dash for happy hour at the Rangali Bar to finish off our dinner with a Mojito and then some food. We did dinner backwards tonight: dessert, drinks and food.

Today’s pics on Picasa Web.