#scubaspa

黎緊七日都住佢 #scubaspa （在 Floating Resort by Scubaspa Maldives）

黎緊七日都住佢 #scubaspa （在 Floating Resort by Scubaspa Maldives）

Another one of our most exciting dives was a night dive, where we swam with 100 or so big nurse sharks and stingrays. It was like a Hollywood production down there - so much activity. Throughout the week, we dove with the same group of people (from Romania, Russia and Menlo Park). There were about 30 guests on the boat for the week, mostly divers but some people just enjoyed snorkeling and the fabulous spa. I was lucky to enjoy three treatments during the week in addition to diving. The staff on the boat were all awesome and the food was also delicious (especially the sashimi!). We were sad to leave! What a great way to finish off our honeymoon!

During the week, I did 12 dives (and almost eight hours of underwater time) and Will did 14 dives (adding another 1.5 hours of bottom time). We both achieved our Advanced Open Water and Nitrox certifications during the week. While this meant we needed to do a little bit of studying (captured with pics of us reading in fins while we hunted for whale sharks), it also helped us hone our deep, wreck, drift, night and navigation skills. Our fearless dive master Jamaica pushed me through diving some strong currents and taught us to love (instead of fear) sharks. One of the coolest dives was at a manta cleaning station, a reef where manta rays head to get cleaned by little fish. The mantas are 5 or 6 feet across and soared over our heads as we hooked into the reef and watched. We had hoped to see whale sharks but they were hiding - we vowed to keep searching them out on future trips!

We flew to the Maldives from Chiang Mai via Bangkok, moving back two hours in time. The airport is on an island (like everything in the Maldives) and we got picked up in a boat to head to our ship, the ScubaSpa Yang for the week. We had an orientation meeting and learned about our itinerary to the South Ari Atoll for the week. Our schedule was posted on a white board each day. On our first dive we had to do a few skills tests to make sure we wouldn't freak out if anything happened.