Maldives (Soneva Fushi) Trip and dive report

great photos and your english is better than my french.
elliott

Patrick NOEL wrote:

> 4th trip to the Maldives ; the second stay at Soneva Fushi Resort &
> Spa : http://www.sixsenses.com/soneva-fushi/index.php . Flight from
> Paris in Business Class with Qatar Airways, via Doha ; excellent
> service on board.
> Idyllic stay in that heavenly island : only 65 villas, set on 111
> acres of lush tropical forest where a network of sand trails leads to
> one of the numerous beaches, to one of the 3 restaurants, to the spa
> or ... to the diving center ! You can either walk or use the bicycles
> that are provided with each villa.
> The kindness of the staff, the luxury of the villas, the quality of
> the food (and of the wine list !), the peacefulness, the lovely smell
> of the forest, ... One doesn't know what to stress out to invite you
> to discover that luxurious "organic" resort, bearing a truly unique
> charm (see here, a few land pictures :
> http://www.aquaphot.fr/SonevaFushi2008.htm ).
> 9 days - 8 nights of pure happiness.
> A real environmental awareness : everything is made of natural
> products, the wood used for building the villas or for the furniture
> comes only from fallen trees or from plantations ; imports are reduced
> as much as possible (there is an organic garden where are grown most
> of the vegetables and fruits served in the restaurants) ; no caviar
> (!), no foie gras, many species of fishes are protected (blue-fin
> tuna, marlin, ...) ; paper and glass are recycled ; no plastic
> wrapping, etc. A very active energy saving program and global warming
> awareness, even if one comes there by hydravion and not with a
> rowboat, and if the diving boat is not a sailboat, but, well ... All
> these efforts are much better than nothing.
> An what about scuba diving ?
> Well, it's true that this kind of resort is not exactly home of
> stakhanovist diving, and it's obviously not what one comes here for.
> No 3 or 4 dives a day like on a diving cruise ; only two dives are
> proposed each day : one in the morning at 9:30, the other one in the
> afternoon at 3 pm. During my 9 days stay I dove only 6 times ...
> One or two boats, depending on the number of divers ; never more than
> 10-12 divers on a single boat ; one guide for 2 to 4 divers. The
> Soleni Dive center (http://www.soleni.com/jsps/homepage.jsp) is owned
> and managed, since 1995 (!) by Thomas Wälchli and Alessandra Benini
> and their multilingual team. All the staff is very professional and
> friendly.
> In March, the dives are rather cool (much less current than during our
> last stays in december 99 and december 2003) ; the diving profiles are
> mostly similar : we dive on "tilas", most of the time slow drift dives
> (at least during this stay !), sand is at a depth of 30-35m ; deep
> divers, bring your shovel ! The tilas rise from the bottom to very
> different depths : ranging from -5m to -17m. A lot of fishes, but not
> so many big pelagic fishes (a few large sting rays, a few eagle rays
> and tunas, though, but I only saw sharks while snorkeling on the house
> reef !) ; a few gorgonian fans. Hard coral is rather healthy (after
> the bleaching due to 1998 El Niño), but in most places, the reef is
> not so colourful with a few exceptions ...
> Due to the current, moderate but always present, and in spite of a
> rather "milky" water, I chose to shoot only wide angle pictures, using
> a Nikon D200 in an Ikelite housing, and a single lens : the Nikkor
> 12-24 zoom lens. Two strobes Ikelite DS125. But with only six dives, I
> took no more than 50 pics or so. Here is a small best of :
> http://www.aquaphot.fr/maldives2008.htm
>
> Enjoy.
>
> Patrick
> (I'm French, so forgive my English ...)
>

Patrick NOEL <plouf.pn...@aquaphot.fr> wrote:
> 4th trip to the Maldives... imports are reduced as much as
> possible (there *is an organic garden where are grown most of
> the vegetables and fruits served in the restaurants) ; no caviar
> (!), no foie gras, many species of fishes are protected (blue-fin tuna,
> marlin, ...) ; paper and glass are recycled ; no plastic wrapping, etc.

Nice to see an attempt to be 'low impact' in the environment.
Naturally, one can compensate when one gets back home to Paris. I'll
have to try to visit 'La Varangue' (7th émeý).


> In March, the dives are rather cool ..

Cool as in 30C? 25?


> Due to the current, moderate but always present, and in spite of a
> rather "milky" water, I chose to shoot only wide angle pictures, using
> a Nikon D200 in an Ikelite housing, and a single lens : the Nikkor
> 12-24 zoom lens. Two strobes Ikelite DS125. But with only six dives, I
> took no more than 50 pics or so. Here is a small best of :http://www.aquaphot.fr/maldives2008.htm

Nicely done, as usual.


-hh

Patrick NOEL <plouf.pn...@aquaphot.fr> wrote:
> 4th trip to the Maldives... imports are reduced as much as
> possible (there *is an organic garden where are grown most of
> the vegetables and fruits served in the restaurants) ; no caviar
> (!), no foie gras, many species of fishes are protected (blue-fin tuna,
> marlin, ...) ; paper and glass are recycled ; no plastic wrapping, etc.

Nice to see an attempt to be 'low impact' in the environment.
Naturally, one can compensate when one gets back home to Paris. I'll
have to try to visit 'La Varangue' (7th émeý).


> In March, the dives are rather cool ..

Cool as in 30C? 25?


> Due to the current, moderate but always present, and in spite of a
> rather "milky" water, I chose to shoot only wide angle pictures, using
> a Nikon D200 in an Ikelite housing, and a single lens : the Nikkor
> 12-24 zoom lens. Two strobes Ikelite DS125. But with only six dives, I
> took no more than 50 pics or so. Here is a small best of :http://www.aquaphot.fr/maldives2008.htm

Nicely done, as usual.


-hh

Patrick NOEL <plouf.pn...@aquaphot.fr> wrote:
> 4th trip to the Maldives... imports are reduced as much as
> possible (there *is an organic garden where are grown most of
> the vegetables and fruits served in the restaurants) ; no caviar
> (!), no foie gras, many species of fishes are protected (blue-fin tuna,
> marlin, ...) ; paper and glass are recycled ; no plastic wrapping, etc.

Nice to see an attempt to be 'low impact' in the environment.
Naturally, one can compensate when one gets back home to Paris. I'll
have to try to visit 'La Varangue' (7th émeý).


> In March, the dives are rather cool ..

Cool as in 30C? 25?


> Due to the current, moderate but always present, and in spite of a
> rather "milky" water, I chose to shoot only wide angle pictures, using
> a Nikon D200 in an Ikelite housing, and a single lens : the Nikkor
> 12-24 zoom lens. Two strobes Ikelite DS125. But with only six dives, I
> took no more than 50 pics or so. Here is a small best of :http://www.aquaphot.fr/maldives2008.htm

Nicely done, as usual.


-hh

Patrick NOEL <plouf.pn...@aquaphot.fr> wrote:
> 4th trip to the Maldives... imports are reduced as much as
> possible (there *is an organic garden where are grown most of
> the vegetables and fruits served in the restaurants) ; no caviar
> (!), no foie gras, many species of fishes are protected (blue-fin tuna,
> marlin, ...) ; paper and glass are recycled ; no plastic wrapping, etc.

Nice to see an attempt to be 'low impact' in the environment.
Naturally, one can compensate when one gets back home to Paris. I'll
have to try to visit 'La Varangue' (7th émeý).


> In March, the dives are rather cool ..

Cool as in 30C? 25?


> Due to the current, moderate but always present, and in spite of a
> rather "milky" water, I chose to shoot only wide angle pictures, using
> a Nikon D200 in an Ikelite housing, and a single lens : the Nikkor
> 12-24 zoom lens. Two strobes Ikelite DS125. But with only six dives, I
> took no more than 50 pics or so. Here is a small best of :http://www.aquaphot.fr/maldives2008.htm

Nicely done, as usual.


-hh

Patrick NOEL <plouf.pn...@aquaphot.fr> wrote:
> 4th trip to the Maldives... imports are reduced as much as
> possible (there *is an organic garden where are grown most of
> the vegetables and fruits served in the restaurants) ; no caviar
> (!), no foie gras, many species of fishes are protected (blue-fin tuna,
> marlin, ...) ; paper and glass are recycled ; no plastic wrapping, etc.

Nice to see an attempt to be 'low impact' in the environment.
Naturally, one can compensate when one gets back home to Paris. I'll
have to try to visit 'La Varangue' (7th émeý).


> In March, the dives are rather cool ..

Cool as in 30C? 25?


> Due to the current, moderate but always present, and in spite of a
> rather "milky" water, I chose to shoot only wide angle pictures, using
> a Nikon D200 in an Ikelite housing, and a single lens : the Nikkor
> 12-24 zoom lens. Two strobes Ikelite DS125. But with only six dives, I
> took no more than 50 pics or so. Here is a small best of :http://www.aquaphot.fr/maldives2008.htm

Nicely done, as usual.


-hh

"Patrick NOEL" <plouf.pnoel@aquaphot.fr> wrote in message
news:mn.c27e7d83f88e7985.84068@aquaphot.fr...
> 4th trip to the Maldives ; the second stay at Soneva Fushi Resort & Spa :
(snip good report)

Patrick, I'm a bit confused. I do understand that the island is quite
lovely and that the resort is to be admired. However, I don't understand
why you would travel so far to dive only twice a day.

Have I missed something in the reading of your report or is it simply that
you do not desire to do more than 2 dives a day?

"Patrick NOEL" <plouf.pnoel@aquaphot.fr> wrote in message
news:mn.c27e7d83f88e7985.84068@aquaphot.fr...
> 4th trip to the Maldives ; the second stay at Soneva Fushi Resort & Spa :
(snip good report)

Patrick, I'm a bit confused. I do understand that the island is quite
lovely and that the resort is to be admired. However, I don't understand
why you would travel so far to dive only twice a day.

Have I missed something in the reading of your report or is it simply that
you do not desire to do more than 2 dives a day?

"Patrick NOEL" <plouf.pnoel@aquaphot.fr> wrote in message
news:mn.c27e7d83f88e7985.84068@aquaphot.fr...
> 4th trip to the Maldives ; the second stay at Soneva Fushi Resort & Spa :
(snip good report)

Patrick, I'm a bit confused. I do understand that the island is quite
lovely and that the resort is to be admired. However, I don't understand
why you would travel so far to dive only twice a day.

Have I missed something in the reading of your report or is it simply that
you do not desire to do more than 2 dives a day?

"Patrick NOEL" <plouf.pnoel@aquaphot.fr> wrote in message
news:mn.c27e7d83f88e7985.84068@aquaphot.fr...
> 4th trip to the Maldives ; the second stay at Soneva Fushi Resort & Spa :
(snip good report)

Patrick, I'm a bit confused. I do understand that the island is quite
lovely and that the resort is to be admired. However, I don't understand
why you would travel so far to dive only twice a day.

Have I missed something in the reading of your report or is it simply that
you do not desire to do more than 2 dives a day?