Vilamendhoo island – all photos can be found here:
http://maggy1960.smugmug.com/Vacation/The-Maldives-JanFeb-2011/16920754_xGKz2Q#1278826242_jFVkX6X

My husband and I went to the Maldives a couple of months ago and it was a great trip. I have always had a dream about going there and finally it came true. I did some research and after a few weeks I found what I was looking for. It was an island with a fantastic house reef very close to shore, good accommodation without being way too luxurious and expensive and not too big or too small. Islands in the Maldives are either resort islands or local islands. A resort island does normally just have one resort and nothing more. The island we picked is called Vilamendhoo and is 900 meters long and 250 meter wide. It has 168 rooms/villas but never felt crowded. We paid 255USD per night will full board (no drinks). The food was absolutely fantastic and the staff was very friendly.
We flew to Male with Austrian airlines via Vienna. From Male to Vilamendhoo it was seaplane, and the flight took 25 minutes. It was so cool to fly over all those tiny islands and coral reefs.



Our villa/bungalow



Overwater villas



The coral reef was indeed fantastic with a wall down to 30 meters/90+ ft and just full of fish. There were certain exits made in the reef so that you could come out to the wall. Here are some of the fishes we saw while snorkeling the reef.

Parrotfish



Maldivian Anemonefish



Indian sailfin tang



Freckeled Hawksfish



Convict surgeonfish schooling



Steep walls



Unicornfish



One day we went on an excursion to see mantas, but we did see this whale shark instead. It was about 5 meters/15 ft and just beautiful.

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Beautiful beaches and water

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The only thing I kind of regret is not scuba diving. The snorkeling was so good, that I got lazy. But I can imagine that the diving would have been just amazing. Well, now I have to come back… I saw so many fishes that I haven’t seen before. The Pacific has so many more species, if you compare to the Caribbean. I took a lot of pictures of fishes, so if you are interested they are in my album (link above).

We were there for one week and except for snorkeling and basking in the sun reading a good book, there were several restaurants, bars, a gym, a playroom, tennis courts, a soccercourt, library and more. But I think that say 10 days would be OK for us, then I think we would have been restless. But this was a perfect way to recharge the batteries. We had very good weather and the temperature was pleasant and not too hot. This island is situated 4 degrees above the equator, so bring a lot of sunscreen.