Continuing on with our Maldives adventure, we stayed in after breakfast as it had been raining overnight and until early morning. We booked to go on the full day island picnic but that was cancelled on account of rain. Later in the afternoon, the rain had stopped and we were told we could still go to nearby Madivaru Island for half the price if we wanted. Why, yes please!

You can actually see the whole island across the water but it was deep so no snorkeling or walking over. We took a short speedboat ride and then hopped out onto the shore. The locals and tourists use the island for picnics and barbecues, things which we could not really risk that day due to ominous rain clouds.


I was looking forward to this island trip because there is a smaller island nearby where, if the tide was low, you could walk across the sea towards that island. Here is a Google map capture so you can see what I mean. Rasdhoo is the island on the left, the largest of the three you see here. That’s where we stayed in the Maldives. We probably walked the entire island four times over during our stay there. Madivaru seems far but it was less then 5 minutes by speedboat from Rashdoo. Then see the smaller island called Madivaru Finolhu? That’s an inhabited island with nothing but crushed shells all around its shores and a small group of plants and shrubs covering the rest of it. We walked from the bigger Madivaru island to this smaller island at least 3 times. Well, walked, snorkelled, same difference. The water was never higher than my armpits so I was confident enough to go back and forth.

I don’t have any more decent photos of our day here because I was busy snorkeling and taking underwater photos and videos on my iPhone, thanks to my Catalyst waterproof case. It provided protection against dust, water and even shock. I did not test my case before using it underwater but I had no problems with it. Well, I did struggle to take photos and videos underwater because the protective film is too thick for any actions to register on the camera’s shutter button, i.e. I hurt my thumb punching that button so many times to no avail!

Anyway, I figured out I can set the timer for photos and start recording videos before submerging the phone underwater. Not ideal, but it worked.

The boys clearly had fun as evidenced by Patrick and Bernie jumping like crazy.

Apoogies for the washed out image. There was not a lot of other images to get proper meter reading and even after post-processing on Lightroom, this is as saturated and as even I could get this photo to look. It was actually a rather cloudy afternoon esp after the rains overnight, but it was fairly warm and the sea was calm.

This is my favourite views as we get to the beach on our island. That is nearby Kuramathi Island which has one of those fancy luxury water villas. Our speedboat ride from Male took us there where we got picked up by another ferry to take us to Rasdhoo. All these islands look so close together but you do need a boat to take you from one to another. Unless you have lungs made of iron and can swim through th eopen sea.

Around the bend of this beach, there are small fishing boats that can be found. I love how idyllic it is. So simple, but so beautiful. I hope you liked this very quick glimpse of Rasdhoo. More photos to follow.