Maldives Liveaboard Fathima - need advice

We're planning a honeymoon diving trip to the Maldives for late
February, early March. We want to spend a week on a liveaboard and a
few days in a resort. After searching high and low for the right boat
with availability in the dates I need, I found the MY Fathima
(www.fathima.info)
The only independent mention of this vessel that I could find on the
web is from a post Tsunami article on Divernet
(http://www.divernet.com/travel2/0605...etsunami.shtml)

Has anyone been on the Fathima? Can you share your thoughts /
comments?

I'm talking with the owner directly and he is asking that I wire money
for a deposit and pay the rest cash on arrival. I'm much more
comfortable with credit cards, but apparently he has no machine there
to process it. I guess most people book through a third party that
takes care of that for them. What do you guys think of this
arrangement?

Lastly, we want to spend a couple of days on a resort before we fly
out. The boat gets back to Male on Sunday afternoon and we want to fly
out on Wednesday. I was looking at Velavaru, do you guys think its
feasible to hop over there for a couple of days, or is it too far?
Any suggestions for another quiet alternative (low key end for our
honeymoon) closer to the airport?

Thanks a lot in advance