Maldives Water Play

 

We've started our run north to south down the 466 miles of Maldives chain of islands and atolls. Above we are anchored in Kanamanu (06* 42.393N, 072* 54.080E in 25ft of scoured sand) . So far this is best place we've been. Clear water, some live coral and lots of fish.

We stayed here for three days. The little island was normally empty, except for a local boat that would come over with a shovel and load sand bags. He would send a few hours filling the sand bags until his little boat was almost not floating then head off toward the north. On the weekend (Fri/Sat) a group of locals with a lot of kids came over to the island to play. You can see the women of the group dressed very conservatively in this pic. No burkinis here.

No shortage of fish color here. A Regal Angelfish posing for her close-up.

These guys were hiding in the underwater rock shade. Two Moorish Idols and a small Peacock Grouper.

Gotta love this gals name: Oriental Sweetlips.

Some Giant Clams having taking on the brown lips of their chosen location.

Too many fake eyes on this Peacock Grouper. 

It is really nice to see some living coral among all the dead coral rubble(more about the coral situation in a later blog).

A couple of days in a row we came across this large Cowtail Stingray (can grow up to 6 feet across) well hidden under a layer of sand. 

He was a thick one with maybe a 3-4 foot wing span.

He finally decided I had gotten too close and exited with a highspeed spurt of energy to fly out of the sand. I think we were both a little spooked.

Another large shade lover, a big Star Puffer fish.

After a nice snorkel I was below when I heard the call of the wild from Chris. On our swim step was this snake!

I quickly and might I say bravely grabbed the fully loaded boat pole and went to the aid of my beloved.

Even after being evicted from the swimstep this evil, attack snake wanted back on.

With the magic of photo enhancement and the Google search it turned out to be a harmless, land based Indian Wolf Snake. (Sea snakes have extremely deadly venom  but their mouths are so small it is almost impossible to get bitten). OK, maybe not so brave... The question is how, and when, did he come aboard??

Paul