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Outside Traveler 2004
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1 2 3 4 5 

Ultimate Islands: The Maldives
Miles of Isles
THE FANTASY DIVE-TRIP COCKTAIL...Take 1,190 coral outposts in the Indian Ocean, add one deluxe catamaran, one dive dhoni, a large splash of sapphire-blue water, and stir.

By Karen Karbo


scuba diving, the maldives
Preparing to scuba-dive from the dhoni (Courtesy, Four Seasons)
I'VE WANTED TO VISIT the Maldives since cruising past them when I was a college junior enrolled in Semester at Sea. On its way from Mombasa to Sri Lanka across the Indian Ocean, the SS Universe traveled through the northernmost atolls of the archipelago. I stood at the railing, gawking as we passed one small island after another, all identical, each with its tidy white beach ringing a grove of coconut palms. My Asian-literature professor, a wiry surfer turned Ph.D., joined me beside the rail and said, "It's the closest thing on earth to a country consisting entirely of ocean." After I learned to scuba-dive, I noticed that the Maldives, home to hundreds of islands with virgin reefs, showed up regularly on lists of the world's great dive destinations.

Access and Resources
CLICK HERE to find out how to get to the Maldives' miles of isles.
And now, I'm on one of those reefs...I think.

During my check-out dive on the first of four days aboard the Four Seasons Explorer last July, I suddenly don't know where I am. It's the same disoriented feeling you get when you wake up in the middle of the night in an unfamiliar hotel room. My dive computer reads 86 feet. Beneath me languishes a coral garden that's suffered from a serious bout of bleaching. The coral is dingy, nothing like the crazy quilt of colors featured in Discovery Channel documentaries. The water is warm; the current, drowsy. What reef is this, fringing what country in what ocean? I'm breathing fast, a precursor to panic. Later I'll remember that divers are more susceptible to disorientation when physically exhausted, and I have a hefty case of jet lag: The Maldives are 14 hours ahead of my home in Portland, Oregon, about as far away as you can get without leaving the planet.

I glance around for my dive buddy—before this dive an absolute stranger—and motion that I need to ascend now. We drift up and at 50 feet are caught in the middle of a huge school of fusiliers, as dense as rush-hour traffic. We are at the center of their energetic orbit; it's like being on some dizzying amusement park ride. We swim on our backs, staring up at the electric-blue fish. The reef below us and the ocean's surface are blotted out in a piscine eclipse.

My brain resets. I remember that I'm on a sweet Maldivian reef called Kamadhoo, and that my buddy is named Martin. He's from Montreal, bears a resemblance to the late JFK Jr., and is a dive instructor on the Explorer. My breathing slows.


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