See you next time, paradise

What a wonderful couple of weeks here in the Maldives. Seriously, for all you people out there who reckon this is a place you'd like to visit (most I guess?!) then do what you can to make it happen. Beg, steal and borrow because it is everything you would imagine and more. It will be so difficult to leave tomorrow morning but I guess on the positive side, it's not like we have to get up for work on Monday now is it?! :-) Sorry to all those who do.

We fly out with Emirates tomorrow with a quick change at Dubai and then we land in Rome where we meet my mam and dad and my sisters Vic and Hel. That will be great, and certainly makes leaving that little bit more bearable!

Chokdee was brushing up on his Italian this afternoon on the sun deck.


The only sentence in Italian I know is voray un bichiere du vino rosso per vevore. You can swap rosso for bianco but basically it means (I'm pretty sure), please may I have a glass of red/white wine. Works for me!

So let's sum up the Maldives quickly. It's hard to say a highlight as it has all been spectacular. Laamu was incredible and the lobster attack whilst snorkelling was pretty special. As was everything else there. The food, views, wine, people; everything. Awesome. At Gili, our Man Friday ' Gasim' has been a star throughout, making our stay amazing. For me, the daily sharks, stingrays and the two snakes I've seen have been the highlight. For Mindy, it has been the ocean views, the sun, the sea and the sand. Oh, and the amazing food too! The wine tasting and spa were a highlight for both of us and need mentioning. Something for everyone :-)

The Man o' War wound flared up on us both this morning and was like hundreds of concentrated mozzie bites all at once! The doctor came out and gave us pills and cream, best thing to do was wash the pills down with a champagne breakfast! So now we are quickly on the mend. Here is a pic of mine this afternoon.


Speaking of this afternoon, this is pretty much how Mindy spent her last day:


She moved to swim, drink her wine and turn over in the sun, but that's about the most of it. She's in a secret love affair with Jack Reacher and I find it's best to leave her to it :-)

We are expecting a full moon tonight. This was what we had last night and it was stunning. That's the moon, not the sun by the way, although we could have sworn we got a slight tan from it on the way to and from the bar!


38 have gone. I'm not a suspicious person by nature, but when I saw them emptying a bucket of what I think were Portuguese Man o' War off their sun deck just before their departure... good riddance! :-)

So that's us. Thank you all for reading when you have had time. I will continue the blog, but not on a daily basis as I'm assuming we wont be passing hours of the day doing sodd all! But it will be fun in Italy and Oman and there will be lots of stories to tell I'm sure. Drunken no doubt for the most part, but hopefully amusing.


So my final fact from the Maldives. More people die from coconuts falling on their heads than from shark or stingray attacks each year. In the water with the sharks I wasn't nervous a bit. Walking through the jungle paths to the bar I'm a wreck!!! On the stats note, I read a report from the BBC that more people die from snake bite each year than malaria or AIDS or other major killers. Now that is scary, and hopefully why I'll always be able to visit the Six Senses, to help them cope with their slithery companions.

Thanks again for reading. I wouldn't write it otherwise! Very much appreciated.

Over and out from me, Mindy and Chokdee from the Maldives.

Italy, be prepared because the Canavan's are a comin'...

Cheers!

Dave Canavan MSc
www.thechingchokhunter.com

Location:Fithiroanu Magu,Hulhumalé,Maldives

Jellyfish attack!

Before we get to the jellyfish attack (as we both managed to live through it), I must tell you about last night. In preparation for Italy, Amanda and I did an Italian wine tasting in the wine cellar. What a place, and what fun. If you see the first photograph, the room itself is built around an incredible curved tree trunk which actually washed up in Gili in 2004 during the devastating tsunami.


Here we are at the tree ready to get into it! As it's a frigid 17 degrees Celsius in the cave, they give you a hot water bottle to put your feet on :-)


Here is Amanda learning about the various white grapes Italy has to offer.


As you can see, it got a bit chilly so jackets were donned, but the wine also helped with warming us up.


This was our favourite wine of the evening from the Verona region, so we have their website and address and plan a visit in a couple of weeks!


One of the many interesting things I learnt is the grading scale for Italian wine. If you look at the picture above under the word Valpolicella, it says Denominazione di Origine Controllata which we need to simply remember as DOC. It is the highest grade for wine in Italy. The next grade is DOCG, then IGT and finally Table Wine. So as a rough guide, we'll read each bottle for an idea of how well made it is, although in many places the locally made table wine maybe better than a DOC wine. I guess we'll have to try them all to find out! One big drunken experiment!!!

Onto the jellyfish, or should I say Portuguese Man o' War which aren't true jellyfish. In fact, jellyfish aren't fish so it should be sea jellies but I'll let the technicalities pass for now....

We are jinxed. On our planned snorkelling trip in Laamu, the night before, a large storm blew in hundreds of Man o' War, 3 people were stung and the trip was cancelled. Well would you believe it... we awoke today, after a stormy night, to perfect conditions. The sea was calm, the wind was a slight breeze which cooled you nicely and the visibility was crystal clear, as you can see from this picture taken this morning from our sun deck.


But there they were, those damn little blue devils! Set to ruin our snorkelling trip again! as there weren't many we went anyway as the numbers were way lower than in Laamu. So we got to our reef, kitted up and were in. The coral was as colourful and vibrant as I have ever seen. The fish came in all shapes and sizes and the whole experience was simply magic, until Amanda was stung on her waist, then hand and worst of all, her ear. Myself and the guide waved the boat over whilst Amanda's stung areas burnt like they were on fire. When the boat finally arrived we swam to it and got Mindy out, where I was then stung!


Before we knew it, the group were racing towards the boat where a girl had stings all over her arm and body with the nematocysts (stinging tentacles) still attached and had to be pulled off. One other poor girl had a reaction to the stings and became blotchy and puffy. Half of the people on board were stung. Needless to say, the snorkelling was cancelled and we returned to shore.

For me, it was great! Amanda and I are both fine, I wanted to know what a sting was like, and we got a free snorkelling trip out of it as all payment was cancelled! To compensate for our pain, we bought a bottle of NZ Sauvignon Blanc which certainly helped :-)

Have a look at my video here. I caught a Man o' War to show you all what they look like.



Here's another video for you. I got in with the sharks to give you a bit of info about them. I see them every day and it never gets boring. I love it!



And for my fact. Did you know that venom and poison mean two different things? For example, you can't have a poisonous snake. For something to be poisonous, it means it affects you by you touching or eating it, where the toxins are not directly administered by the animal itself, such as with the cane toad. For something to be venomous, it delivers the toxins to you via spines, fangs or a sting. So spiders, snakes, bees etc. are all venomous and not poisonous.

So, the most poisonous animal in the world is a species of poison arrow frog called the golden dart frog. The most venomous animal (although it is difficult to judge based on the different types of toxins and how they effect you) is the box jellyfish. Thankfully the Portuguese Man o' War don't make the deadly list!

Cheers,

Dave Canavan MSc
www.thechingchokhunter.com

Hackers Delight...

Another lazy day for the Canavan's. It was bright and sunny, then it rained, then bright and sunny, then rained again. It was great though, except for the Hotmail Hackers. We suspect 38 had a hand in it but it's difficult to prove...

There was a lot of excitement in the villa today. Two stingrays popped by (for the toilet of course) and then very shortly afterwards, a huge eagle ray gracefully glided by. He was amazing and even swam into our private pool area. I must admit, I'm not intimidated by many animals, but when he kept swimming towards me and entered my comfort radius (a metre) I had to retreat up the steps. I went back in for a look again but he was off by then after winning his little power struggle...



Check him out though. I know the video is a bit of a let down as he doesn't feature but here he is, with my huge feet for size reference.









Now that I can embed videos (I hope they work but if not, visit my YouTube channel here) I'd like to show you two things. First is the ride home, which we do every day from breakfast and dinner if we choose to leave the ranch.



Second is a walkthrough of the villa itself. What a place, as I'm sure you'll agree.



Before the fact, I'll leave you with this image. Not a pretty sight... for me anyway! Amanda and I have been playing chess everyday and I hate to admit it, but she's getting good. And last night, she had her first victory, much to my dismay. Here is the check mate position and the smug grin on Mindy's face. Enjoy...




I'm sticking with sharks and rays for facts again as it is the highlight for me everyday. Sharks and rays are part of a group known as cartilaginous fishes. Every other fish is of the bony fish family. From an evolutionary point of view, bony fish are more closely related to humans than they are to the cartilaginous fish. Amazing hey?

But for a pub quiz fact, the largest cartilaginous fish, also the largest fish in the world, is the whale shark. A true gentle giant. The largest bony fish is also what I consider the weirdest looking fish there is. It is the giant mola mola or sunfish. Google it. You'll be amazed!

Cheers!

Dave Canavan MSc
www.thechingchokhunter.com

Sweet Fanny Adams!

We were woken last night with a huge clap of thunder that shocked us out of a deep sleep without warning. It was building all afternoon and let rip at some point during my sleep. Just to show you that the water is always the amazing turquoise/azure blue all the time and not just because of the sun, here is a pic of the storm building last night whilst we were having dinner and playing chess.


It actually looked much angrier last night, but you get the point!

As the title suggests, we have done sweet FA today and it has been lovely! We had planned on a snorkelling trip but we cancelled early on due to choppiness of the water, although it did clear up nicely. Not to worry though as a shark swam under our villa and then Big Bertha, the daily monster stingray stopped by for a dump again, this time under our sun deck. He's always welcome though!

Chokdee snorkelled for us instead while we had a lazy day, reading, playing chess and generally slouching.


Here he is about to get into our private swimming hole...


In other news, we haven't seen 38 today although we suspect a sabotage... To get the room turned down, you put the eyes from open...


...to closed...


Anyway, we went to dinner and could have sworn we left them open, but when we returned, turn down wasn't done and the eyes were closed. Damn 38!!!

This afternoon we spent a few hours at the spa where we had a massage. You have to fill a form out about preferences and allergies etc. Amanda's form, already filled out by the ever so efficient staff read:

First Name: Amanda. Surname: William Canavan :-)

Whilst we were waiting for our treatment, a guest masseur from Thailand came to chat to us. She is a crystal healer and specialises in 'crystal singing bowl treatment'... right up my alley! She asked us if we'd like a demonstration and it was impossible to refuse. She asked us to close our eyes and then she bonged a bowl, wafted it around and hummed in various complimentary tones between mine and Amanda's heads. After the vibrations had righted my brain waves and she left, I looked over and saw that Amanda was in fits of laughter with tears rolling down her face. The mental image of this wailing hippie, whacking a bowl and humming like fat dog after he'd sat on his own testicles was too much to bear... she lost it! I personally didn't see the funny side and feel spiritually uplifted!

We're off now for cocktails with the GM and a bit of this...


But before we sign off, here is a world's first and especially for you Moira: Planking In the Maldives!!!!!!!!!


Fact of the day: lightning. Virtually everything we encounter on earth is solid, liquid or gas, one of the 3 states of matter. Lightening is a 4th state known as plasma, a bit like a super heated liquid/gas. The reason thunder always follows lightening is that the temperature of the lightening is so hot that it instantly heats the air around it, causing it to expand at an enormous rate, sending out a pressure wave. Sound waves are pressure waves, therefore we interpret this incredibly powerful longitudinal wave as a clap (if close) or rumble of thunder. And you always see lightning before the thunder as the speed of light is way faster than the speed of sound, therefore the lightening reaches your eyes before the thunder reaches your ears.

Cheers!

Dave Canavan MSc
www.thechingchokhunter.com

Location:Fithiroanu Magu,Hulhumalé,Maldives

Bike wars...

It's been all go here today. Nothing but adrenalin from start to finish! Yesterday, the people in villa 38 stole our bikes! Can you believe it?! Although the same design, ours were newer and had comfier seats so we went to confront the thieves. They weren't in. So, we called Gasim (our 'Man Friday') and told him that 38 had taken our bikes (36) and that we didn't want to ride around with bikes saying 38 on the number plate instead of 36. We didn't mention that they were simply better bikes :-)

So Gasim, in his restless need to please, swapped the bikes. Or so we thought... He actually just swapped the numbers on the back. Now I didn't mind so much, but Amanda had a far worse bike, with an uncomfortable seat and a snotty hankie in the basket, so when we found their (our!) bikes at breakfast this morning, we took off the number plates and swapped them back, and then parked somewhere else. Needless to say, it was a very nerve wracking morning! Oh the stresses. The stresses turned to relief over a Champagne breakfast when we realised it was Monday morning and if bike swapping is all we have to worry about... life's not bad!

We think the bike thing is resolved now as we nodded to 38 during a beach pass but we'll see. We passed them on the beach because we went snorkelling with sharks! What an experience. They were shy at first but then were all around us. You couldn't help but be paranoid about your toes getting bitten off!






Following that, back at our villa, an enormous stingray swam past. I eagerly took photos and then it decided to stop next to our shower. We quickly pulled on the snorkels and were in there with him. He was massive, about 2-3 metres from nose to tail. What was he doing outside our villa's 'private pool'? Taking a dump!!! Which was fine as a huge pufferfish decided that would be his meal so we happily watched him too. What a day! It was so stressful we had to lie on sun beds and hammocks reading and eating frozen mango, just to get over the shock of it all. :-)



Fact time: sharks today as they were my personal highlight. Sharks, just like that little annoying kid in the movie, have a 'sixth sense'. They don't see dead people, or dead fish for that matter. They have sensors around their nose area called electroreceptors where they sense electrical impulses given off by all living creatures. Therefore, if a fish is injured or dying, its electrical impulse will be picked up by the shark and eaten. Hammerheads are the most sensitive to the electrical impulses which is why they have the hammer shaped heads, where the whole front is packed with electroreceptors. A true marvel of evolution.



Check out this picture! It looks like Chokdee is in a vortex or something. He's actually just on a peephole in the floor of our bathroom. Having fun, as always!

Oh, and one final thing... I caught a snake here yesterday! Amanda filmed it and hopefully I'll get it on YouTube, but I came all the way to the Maldives and caught a wolf snake. This is truly my version of paradise!

The walking tour of our villa/mansion is still unfinished as I'm sure you can understand, it has been a very tough day...


Cheers!

Dave Canavan MSc
www.thechingchokhunter.com

Location:Fithiroanu Magu,Hulhumalé,Maldives

Living in a Screen Saver

For weeks now, Amanda has had a picture of the bar at Soneva Gili as her screen saver and finally, without the need of photoshop, she is finally in it :-)



When we found out our leaving time and when it finally dawned on us that we do actually have to leave Laamu, we were nervous and questioned whether we'd done the right thing or not... I mean, who leaves paradise?

Anyway, as we landed at Male airport and were picked up by a team of about 6 people, including the GM, we started to relax. When we finally pulled up and moved into a villa roughly 4 times as big as the one at Laamu, we really started to think we made the right decision. But this was the clincher for me...



They are all around the bar! Baby black tip reef sharks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A metre and a half at most in length and I am in paradise! I said to Amanda that if this island had cobras, I have found heaven. As it doesn't, it's just bloody close!

The Six Senses philosophy, along with 'No Shoes No News' is:


Fine by us! Not surprisingly, we fit right in! The shoes were off in the boat before we even arrived at the resort, and then we moved from first gear into neutral with ease...


This one's for you Jeremy Coles: They serve Corona (all beers actually) in ice buckets! Genius :-)


Apart from being burnt and tired, all is well in the new place. It is a league above Laamu and I didn't think that was even possible! So here we are, Soneva Gili. I'll do a walk round tour tomorrow of our mansion! But for now, I leave you with a view of our sun beds from the open air lounge.



Oh yeah...Chokdee has settled in nicely and is just off for a shower...


And finally, my fact. Do you know what the most intelligent invertebrate on the planet is? It is the ever changing, wonderful octopus. They've also got 3 hearts and no bones. Their only hard part is a beak which they use to eat things with. And the largest of the octopus species is the giant octopus which lives in the icy waters in Canada and can grow up to 10 metres in length!!! This is because of the higher percentage of dissolved oxygen in colder waters.

I went with the octopus because in the bar there is a hole in the floor of roughly 4 metres in diameter and there lives an octopus who I haven't seen yet, but only cos he's cleverer than I am and better at hiding!

Cheers!

Dave Canavan MSc
www.thechingchokhunter.com

Location:Fithiroanu Magu,Hulhumalé,Maldives

Leaving Laamu

We have had naked feet for 6 days now. I don't just mean that we've been mostly barefoot. Literally, we have not clothed our feet in anything at all for about 130 hours. On the bike, at breakfast, for cocktails at the bar and for fancy evening meals, all have been done barefoot. What a treat! But sadly it's over. At least the Laamu part of it because tomorrow when we go to Soneva Gili it has a 'No Shoes No News' policy, so back to naked feet it is. I'm dreading the rubber between my toes for the 2 hour journey between the two resorts!

We have had a great day today. It has been picture perfect so we have been, as Tim described us, 'Maldivian Water Babies' all day. Here is Chokdee getting out of the water, basically emulating us.


We snorkelled the reef edge today and it was nothing short of stunning. Sadly no turtles but every kind and colour of fish you could imagine. The reef edge drops away with stunning coral, and visibility is about 20 metres. From there it plunges into the depths, to a place where only gills or an air tank will take you. Snorkelling is fine for us!

We then (after getting badly sunburnt) returned to our spectacular villa and entertained ourselves immensely, as you can see...





In-between jumping off various parts of the villa, we Skyped both sets of parents and snorkelled some more, where we got into an argument with a lobster. He won. We backed off although Amanda kept muttering things like 'I'll see you in a risotto one day' and such. It didn't help his mood!

I also messed around with the iPad camera and decided these were the highlights:






So all in all, it was very productive! Or as productive as you can get in such a place :-)

Facts today... When we arrived to the Maldives we had to take two flights to get to the nearest island to the resort. The first flew from the capital Male to the very southern most island called Gan. During the flight we crossed from the northern hemisphere into the southern. Then, to get to Laamu we crossed back over the equator and returned to where the water rotates anti-clockwise when you flush the toilet.

The reality is that many things effect which way water rotates when you let the plug out of the sink, and that to be exclusively anti-clockwise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in rotation in the southern hemisphere will only happen in very careful and precise conditions. The effect is known as the Coriolis Effect and certainly happens on massive objects such as the oceans and weather, where the water or weather's inertia are affected by the rotation of the earth. A bit complex for a blog but anyway, go to the loo and see which way it spirals and let me know!

We leave at 6.45 am tomorrow (some paradise!) but should arrive for breakfast in the beautiful Soneva Gili so we'll blog from there.

Cheers,

Dave Canavan MSc
www.thechingchokhunter.com

Location:Bodu Magu,Hithadhoo,Maldives