After several long and tiring trips, both within India, and around the globe, we had one important criteria for our summer vacation planning:  direct flight. While there are several nice places that fit the bill, the one that interested us the most was the flight to Malé, Maldives.  Private resort islands in the middle of the Indian Ocean? Of course we were interested.  After soliciting a number of friends, we booked in at Kurumba, a resort that offered some other features that we were interested in; close to the airport, children’s activity centre, and scuba diving.

We arrived at noon on Sunday, and immediately noticed that it was hot and humid.  Given that the Maldives are essentially on the equator, we expected this, but it was still noteworthy.  Once we connected with the resort employee who was sent to fetch us, we were whisked on to a luxurious and air conditioned boat and sped to the island that housed Kurumba.  As with most resorts and hotels in the Maldives, the island consisted only of our resort, a neat feature.  We were quickly and efficiently checked in, and shown to our room, which was right on the beach and looked out onto the ocean.

It didn’t take us long to get settled.  While I quickly tried to find the sand toys and bathing suits, the lils and Willy ran the fifteen feet to the water’s edge and started playing in the sand.  They inched closer and closer to the water until both lils were happily swimming, in their clothes.  We eventually got them into bathing suits and later dragged then away from the water to find food.  We walked the perimeter of the island to find the restaurant, and watched the lils inch closer and closer to the water until they were wet again.  It was a scene that was happily repeated throughout the week.

That evening we headed to the beach bar on the eastern side of the island.  We had heard from friends that the patio was a great place to look for aquatic life, and had heard from the resort that they would be hosting happy hour for the guests!  On our walk around the island, the waters were calm and we were pleasantly surprised to find that the area within the breakwall and natural reef was teeming with fish and other creatures.  Our favourites were the numerous hermit crabs that skillfully* dodged little and big feet on the beach.  We sat outside on the deck at the bar, and marvelled at the fish, rays, crabs, squid, seahorse, and baby SHARKS that kept passing by.

Our days followed a lazy pattern of early morning “shark walks”, lavish meals at the buffet, snorkelling in the patch of ocean that was right in front of our door (the snorkelling was really amazing, the reef is really well developed), more eating, some margaritas or other appropriate drinks, a visit to the “kid’s club”, more eating and switching to wine, and finished off with pouring the lils into bed (and occasionally falling asleep with them).  I was also lucky enough to get in five dives, which absolutely thrilled me.

While this may sound like it could have been any other all-inclusive vacation that we have been on, it was so much better.  The staff was bend-over-backwards friendly to us and the lils.  Everyone that we met, including the great staff working at the dive centre, went out of their way to ensure that we were all enjoying ourselves.  The food was great for the carnivores and seafood lovers in the family, and the chefs in particular were responsive to Woo’s allergy needs.  The rooms were clean and spacious, had nice linens, and were really well maintained for a resort that is around thirty years old!  We all loved the bathroom, with a great big soaker tub and a fabulous outdoor rain shower. A nice side effect is that has convinced the lils that showers are not so bad after all.

One of the best memories that we will all take from the trip was the sunset cruise on Wednesday night.  Billed as a dolphin and sunset cruise, I had no way of knowing just how many spinner dolphins we would see, and how they would perform for us!  There were literally hundreds of dolphins, swimming in the bow wake, dipping and diving all around us, jumping and doing their patented spin in the air as far as we could see.  We were all amazed, and I keep smiling thinking of it.  I just wish I had tried harder to get some better shots of them.  I was too busy looking on in awe!

Now I have to convince Willy that we can go back there before we leave India.  I am pretty sure that he wants to go, we just need to know if we will be able to squeeze it in.

*well, all but one skillfully dodged my big feet.  RIP lil fella.*

8 comments

For someone that likes to plan and overprepare everything in life, I sort of fly by the seat of my pants with respect to the tales you see here. I write when inspiration hits, and although I have about a thousand post ideas scattered all over my digital and real life, I rarely know what will be posted on any given day until I sit to write it. The exception to this is Wednesday, when I share pictures, generally from the week that was. Last night I broke with tradition and wrote a cute lil tale about Goose, how she looks up to me, and whether or not I have inspired her career aspirations. Thinking that it would make for a cute Friday tale, I decided not to publish it, and hit “save draft” one more time before going to bed.

I had seven hours a few minutes to myself today, and decided that I should start trying to at least find all of the post ideas and at least throw them into one of the several documents that I have started on the subject (all of them called ideas.doc, of course). I was but a few minutes into this thrilling task when I realized that I had a shiny new post all ready to go, so I should publish it. Two seconds later I was at my dashboard and there was no trace of my cute lil tale. It was completely gone, with no actual proof that it existed. I knew I wrote it, and I knew that WordPress had eaten it, as I have had this happen before, and have vowed to never author content in WP again. The rest of the afternoon was spent berating WP for eating something that I wrote and mental self-flagellation for breaking my only rule.

Today you get pictures that amuse me, because I needed a giggle.

From our trip to Ottawa, I went to Mud Lake with the lils and got to play around with my brand new zoom lens. This was just one of the test shots that I took, focussing on the duck on the rock.

Then I got home and zoomed in:

That turtle is in for a rude awakening!

Tonight, as I prepared the lils for bed, I shut down all the windows (they spray for bugs in the evening – and that is nasty stuff). When I got to Goose`s room and looked down on our neighbour`s back door.

There are a number of stray cats in the neighbourhood, but this one seems to have found a pretty cozy spot. She was OUT.

The punchline to Goosie’s tale? She wants to go to clown school and become a clown when she grows up. You can decide whether or not I influenced that path.

3 comments

I was a child of the eighties, and as such grew up with a pair of roller skates.  They were “the” thing to have, and I was happy to finally get a pair at some point in my teens.  They were hand-me-downs from my sister, which meant that I had to covet them for a year or so before I got them, which made me appreciate them all the more.  They were the classic white boot/red wheel pair, and were well loved by both of us.  They certainly beat the metal wheels that I had been strapping on my sneakers to that point.

As an adult I looked to reintroduce roller skates into my life and failed.  I looked all over, but roller blades were the in thing then, and skates were nowhere to be found.  I reluctantly settled, but soon grew to love the blades.  I would frequently hope on the bike path, near my west end apartment, and head downtown and back.  It was a long ride and a good work out, with no cars to deal with.

My blading was curbed a little when I moved in with Willy.  We were living in the Market area of downtown, and access to the bike paths meant that I had to face my foe, the car.  I was a little bit of an out of control roller blader, and cars meant that the rides were scary, not enjoyable.  Then we moved back to the burbs, had two babies, and I forgot all about my blades.

When Santa brought Woo some blades for Christmas, I felt a bit of regret that I had not given in to the urge to bring my blades to India.  Woo loves his, and our community is perfect for riding around. Then yesterday, these were posted on the community news group: They are just Goose’s size, so we snapped them up for her. They came with a full set of pads, so she was ready to go instantly. The look on her face when she first tried them was priceless, pure joy.  She is so in love with them, even though she can’t actually move on them.  She has mastered standing on her toes, standing on the wheels, falling, and getting herself back up again.  It’s only a matter of time before she is rocking and rolling around. Now I want to get roller skates again.

4 comments