I step out of the airport Male, the capital of the island state.

I am standing right in front of the most beautiful ocean on our planet: the Indian Ocean. 

I breath in and sense the clean salty air. A gentle breeze is blowing through my hair. 

The only thing I can hear are seagulls and the sound of the ocean .

I arrived in paradise. 

I decided to spend this years New Year’s Eve on a small fisherman boat exploring some of the 1.200 islands of the Maldives together with 7 other Italian adventurers from Viaggi avventure nel mondo. It was the best NYE ever.

Ma Shibaru was our home for the week. A small boat housing 10 people plus our lovely skipper, cook and the our chief of cruising Urbey. A middle aged man who knows the Maldives like the back of his head and told us endless stories and taught us the perks of fishing. This is what we learned:

The Maledives are a muslimic country
Despite not being strictly Muslim, one should stick to certain rules when visiting the island state. Rule number one, one cannot import alcohol into the country. So if you think to bring this one special wine that you saved up for a special romantic moment, leave it at home. When entering the Maldives, every bag is checked at the customs and any sort of alcohol will be confiscated. The good news is, the resorts are allowed to sell alcohol to their guests. The bad news, the boat did not. Nevertheless, our chief Urbey was able to smuggle in some bottles of wine for us to cheer on New Year’s Eve. Another thing to be aware of at the Maldives is to not walk around in a bikini when visiting one of the populated islands. Shorts and a too will be sufficient. Since there are flocking so many people from around the globe to the Maldives, it loosened up its Muslim values and rules.

The tsunami of 2004 changed everything 
We all remember the pictures of the tsunami waves hitting Indonesia from the news. On the 26th of December 2004 hundreds of people died, thousand of homes have been destroyed and no one saw it coming. What many people do not know: the two waves also hit the Maldives. Despite the distance between Indonesia and the island state, the waves had enough strength to destroy peoples homes and even kill some of the residing tourists and locals.

Our chief Aubrey himself was stuck on an island for 24 hours without water and food. He got surprised by the wave while fishing on a deserted island with friends. Holding onto a palm saved their life. Besides it’s destructive power on land and people , it also hugely impacted on the coral reefs. Most of the damage to coral reefs resulted from sediment and coral rubble thrown about by the waves, and smothering by debris washed off the land. The colorful sea of the Maldives turned into a graveyard. Climate change and the human are further preventing the recovery of the corals. It takes up to 5 to 20 years for corals to recover providing that effective management is implemented. However, warm water temperature caused by climate change and resulting into coral bleaching prevent the revival. Additionally, artificial islands are created by foreign investors building new hotels and resorts. For that purpose, the sand is taken out of the ocean resulting in sand dust framing in the water. This sand dust is preventing corals from breathing, hence kills existing corals and prevents new ones from growing. 

High season is from December to March – New Year’s Eve being the most expensive time
During the dry season (December to March), you can expect low rainfall, low humidity and lots of sunshine. The wet season , also known as the “South West Monsoon”, runs from May to November and this is considered the worst time to visit the Maldives given the occurring heavy rainfalls.

Irrespective of the season, Maldives is not a cheap holiday destinations. But prices become become ridiculously high for Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Let’s assume you wanna stay in a boutique 4 star resort . During high season it will cost you around 200 to 400€ per person per night all inclusive. The same resorts will costs you more than 4 times the amount during the high season from mid December to mid January. It’s insane. An alternative to experience the beauty of the Maldives and learn about the culture and the biodiversity is to spend a few days on a boat. Many agencies provide boat trips for different budgets. We stayed on a local fisherman’s boat via our collaboration partner viaggi avventure nel mondo. Besides getting to know new people, we learned a lot from our crew, fished our own lunch and dinner and were able to the experience different parts of the island state. 

Sustainability is becoming more and more relevant 
Gone are the days when a hotel that put a sign in the bathroom reminding guests to reuse their towels could call itself sustainable. Now, it’s base-level good practice in the Maldives to have banned single-use plastic water bottles and straws. The island state is advancing its sustainability efforts. Read more about it in our recent blog post.