Island magic

The Maldives are magical below the water – where you can swim with fish on coral reefs – and above it, writes GARY QUINN

I’M DROPPING HOOKS deep into the Indian Ocean, pulling fish out by hand. No rod or reel. They don’t even need bait: just the silver glint of the hook is enough to trap them. The smell of a newly caught fish is universal, the scales that cling to your hand a scattering of magic. Suddenly that magic pushes me through time and space and I’m a boy again on a riverbank in Donegal and my uncle is by my side, teaching me how to hold a fish firmly in my hand as I slip the hook from its lip and crack its skull with the back of a knife.

I learned patience on that river bank and a 100 other lessons that have cast me up tonight on a yacht in the Maldives. My colleagues shout my name and suddenly my uncle is gone and I’m back floating under the stars, with champagne and warm night air the only distraction.

There’s an excitement on board. Earlier, our boat was surrounded by Spinner dolphins that looped and spun to entertain us for 20 minutes before shooting off towards the setting sun. We cheered, our Maldivian hosts cheered – it really was an incredible excursion in this beautiful island nation.

Around 1,200 islands make up the Maldives, scattered in groups in the Indian Ocean, their highest points climbing barely 1.5 metres. But the power of this place lies beneath the surface. What we see as mere islands are the peaks of a vast submarine mountain range and the life that this supports, both above and below the water line, is breathtaking. Tourism and the environment rules here. It has to. Island life in any country is harsh but here in the Maldives it is particularly challenging. There’s little topsoil beneath the warm white sand, making agriculture complicated, while rising temperatures and sea levels caused by global warming mean the islands and its precious coral are in constant peril.

Almost everything that is consumed in the Maldives is imported and so, when an industry such as tourism takes off, everyone gets behind it.

This is at the top-end of the world tourism market and it deserves its ranking. New resorts are opening each year, many by international operators. I got to stay in two resorts that are Maldivian owned. Local hospitality is always the most truthful and my days spent on the two islands of Vilu Reef and Olhuveli, owned by Sun Hotels and Resorts, were magnificent.

It’s a 10-hour flight from London to Male, the capital of the Maldives. The city is an island itself, stuffed full of brightly-coloured skyscrapers and a warren of markets, mosques and private homes. From here you can travel by sea plane for 45 minutes south to Vilu Reef or take a motor boat north for 45 minutes to Olhuveli.

Both islands offer luxury, excitement and incredible peace. Olhuveli is the larger of the two and so possibly better suited to families, but the strange magic of these resorts is that even though both were 98 per cent full when I visited, it felt as though I had them largely to myself.

The staff are perfectly professional, welcoming and open. From our first meeting on Vilu Reef with garlands of flowers and coconut milk to the sad wrench of my departure from Olhuveli I was treated as though I was the most important person in the world.

My accommodation on both islands was incredible but it needs to be said that a person alone in a luxury villa perched on stilts over a coral blue sea is wasteful. These are homes for couples. The bedroom of my villa opened on to a sun deck that disappeared to the horizon. I tied a kayak to the foot of stairs, which offer private access to the water, and I used it to commute back and forth to the restaurant.

One night we had a tropical storm. Huge drops of warm rain pummelled the deck. I poured myself a whiskey, stripped to my skin and stepped out on the deck to experience it. Lightening cracked and the wind blew warm. The sea beneath me, lit from a powerful underwater light attached to my villa, flashed to life. I looked again: a barracuda. This fearsome-looking fish, almost a metre long, was hunting. We watched each other, the barracuda and I. He was long and thin with a silver blue back and a shining white belly. His suited him more than mine suited me. My belly and back was burnt in red and white having spent the previous day snorkelling without sun cream on the house reef at Vilu Reef.

Each island is surrounded by its own house reef, a wall of coral where the fish life can really come alive. You can take safari trips out to deeper water and richer grounds but for me the house reefs were fantastic.

I strapped on flippers and a mask and explored, following four small black fish away from the beach. I'm only metres from the shore when a bright orange clown fish (known for starring in Finding Nemo) catches my eye. I turn to follow and suddenly the earth drops away into a sheer cavern and a speeding highway of fish life opens up. I'm startled. Large schools of fish of every hue and size are travelling against the current, darting in and out of coral. The sudden depth of the water alarms me but the staff from the resort teach me to duck-dive and explore without fear. Larger fish pass by, way beneath me, while smaller species of parrotfish, redtails and surgeon fish behave as though I'm not there.

The Maldives are home to the whale shark and the black-tipped reef shark although you won’t find any this close to shore and we’re assured they’re harmless. In the warm shallows I pass a baby reef shark, barely a foot long, herding a huge shoal of tiny fish, although in training.

Throughout the snorkelling I forget that my back is exposed to the strong mid-day sun. Cold water is no protection it turns out and I’m badly sunburnt. But in the Maldives there is nothing that a touch of extra attention cannot cure and I’m led into the island spa. I’ve never had a real massage before and I’m having boundary issues but it is utterly professional. The atmosphere is incredibly calm and the décor designed to subdue.

I lie down and expert hands with the lightest touch rub aloe vera all over my body. Then I’m slowly wrapped in ice-cold sheets as my head, shoulders and feet are massaged. Soft music is playing, birds are singing outside and the mix of heat and cold is intoxicating. I drift away to another place and later emerge in a daze, my burnt skin soothed. Later I hear other guests, equally relaxed and with much more experience than me, talk about the spa treatments on Vilu Reef and Olhuveli as being the best they’ve ever had.

Food on the islands match the luxurious surroundings. You can have almost any style of food you want, in any setting: in a beautiful restaurant overlooking the water, poolside, candlelit on a deserted beach, or on your own desert island (a popular marriage proposal location). You can even go to sea for a big game safari and catch your own fish and have it cooked on a barbecue on the sand. There really is no limit and I enjoyed pretty much everything, particularly a night of wine pairing as a sommelier walked us through the fine wines he had chosen to accompany the chef’s choice of seven courses of incredible food.

The next day I went out on a kayak to paddle around the island of Olhuveli. The sea was like glass and as I passed over a shallow area something moved beneath me. Looking down, mere inches from my paddle, a huge stingray flapped its wings and glided away from me. I followed furiously in its elegant wake and then to my left saw another and then one more. Suddenly seven stingray were gliding into deeper water, their meter-wide wings and long sharp tails barely causing a ripple on the surface as I unconsciously chased them from their shallow-water suntrap.

I was amazed to have seen something so wild and it captured how special a place the Maldives really is. Later, I was chatting to a member of staff and relaying my excitement at being so close to something so majestic. He listened intently, even though I knew he had probably heard it all before since stingray and eagle ray are common here. Smiling then, as if to let me know he understood my excitement, he quietly mentioned that he had never seen a river. I stopped. The Maldives don’t have many, he explained. And in a moment he captured how different the Maldives is for the Irish. A land without rivers bathed in constant summer – another place entirely.

High season runs from November 1st to April 30th – February is the peak. Olhuveli Beach and Spa Resort is on olhuvelimaldives.com and Vilu Reef Beach and Spa Resort: vilureefmaldives.com

Trailfinders (trailfinders.ie/ 01 677 7888 / 021 464 8800) is offering seven nights at Vilu Reef Beach and Spa Resort in a garden villa on a half-board basis and seven-nights at Olhuveli Beach and Spa Resort in a deluxe room on an all-inclusive basis from €2,789 per person (saving €180 per person), based on two adults sharing. Valid for bookings made by January 24th, for selected departures from May 1st to July 24th, the price includes return flights from Dublin via Gatwick with British Airways, seaplane and speedboat transfers, 14 nights’ accommodation, taxes and surcharges.