Maldives

Brian's mom flew out to watch the kids so that Brian and I could go to the Maldives. There wasn't much advance planning so we're grateful that she could come out with only 2 weeks notice. The Maldives is comprised of a group of 1200 islands with only about 200 islands inhabited (about 100 with resorts). Interesting fact- the highest point in the Maldives is 7 ft. 10 in...with an avg ground elevation at 5 ft it's the lowest country in the world. In fact, with rising sea levels it's expected that the Maldives will disappear in 20 years. Ok enough rambling...we had a great, belated 15th anniversary trip.

The journey to our resort in Hadahaa took 4 flights (Perth to Singapore to Male to Kadhdhoo to Kooddoo) and a 30-minute speedboat ride to the island...pretty remote! This is the plane that took us on our last 2 flights.

Kooddoo airport baggage claim- tiny!

Hadahaa- the only thing on the island is the resort- it took 25 minutes to walk around the entire perimeter of the island.

This pic should be self-explanatory...but yay, we finally made it!

Brekkie with a view.

Standing on the beach after breakfast.

Beach selfie right before sunset.

Sunset photos. Maldivian sunsets definitely rival Perth sunsets!

Brian drinking some coconut juice.

Beach sunrise. This was taken from our private beach area next to our villa.

Brian did lots of relaxing and diet coke drinking.

My absolute favorite part of snorkeling was seeing a whole school of young cuttlefish near the jetty- we've never seen cuttlefish before whilst snorkeling. Brian climbed out of the water on to the jetty and snapped this pic of me following them around.

A pic of the cuttlefish- they are kind of hard to see b/c they kept changing colors.

Some fish photos- probably the best snorkeling we've ever done- the house reef on the island is amazing. We saw so many unique varieties of fish...even a couple turtles and some sharks!

Brian went scuba diving- he saw lots of great things but pictured here is a leopard shark and an eagle ray.

It was hard to leave paradise! But we missed the kids and needed to rescue grandma! Many thanks again to Brian's mom- she braved learning to drive on the left side of the street and watched the kids for 6 days. We're grateful we were able to have a once-in-a-lifetime getaway!