Day 3 - Diving, Paddle-boarding and more

I did not sleep particularly well last night. I was worried that yesterdays violent rainstorm was an omen of bad weather to come. The forecast for the next few days did not look particularly promising. I also kept imagining that the waves crashing under our villa were being driven by a strong wind. However, all of my worries were unfounded. It was going to be an absolutely beautiful day full of glorious sunshine. 

We had to be up somewhat early this morning because we were scheduled to go scuba diving. Alison woke up and went to the gym (nothing shakes her dedication). When she got back we decided to take a sunrise bike ride around the island, rather than watching the sunrise from our villa. There aren't too many better ways to start a morning. 

We ended our bike ride at the Tasting Table (name of the restaurant that serves breakfast every morning). We were the only guests in the whole place at 7am. Most people eat between 9-10:30am. We got to pick any table we wanted and of course we picked one on the beach. I could totally get used to eating omelets and other delicious breakfast foods and drinking fresh squeezed juices on the beach. 

After breakfast we headed to the dive shop. Dive boats go out twice a day. The morning dive is a two tank dive and the afternoon dive is a one tank dive. We were the only people signed up to dive this morning so we had the entire dive boat to ourselves. It was only us, our guide, and a couple of guys to drive the boat. The diving in the Maldives is fantastic. We traveled by boat ~30 minutes to a nearby reef. Once we got to the reef we had a brief orientation with our guide and then we entered the water. Alison and I took a short refresher course at home, before we came to the Maldives. We were glad we did we felt the most comfortable we ever have while diving. We both had personal best depths on this dive - I went down 24.5 meters and Alison went down 25.9 meters. We saw so much vibrant sea life. There was even a small shark that went by under Alison. It was a fantastic dive. The second one was just as good. We spent our surface interval rehydrating and eating some fruit. Then we went to another nearby reef. This was a fun dive because there was a fairly strong current. You didn't really need to do anything it just pulled us all right along. We saw some really interesting sea life on this dive including an octopus, a pufferfish, and a sea turtle. We love sea turtles. 

After our dives they brought us back to the boat. We had so much fun we decided to dive again on Sunday. We headed back to our villa to clean up a little bit, and then we rode our bikes over to the beach area and rented some complimentary paddle boards. We took the paddle boards out on the lagoon. The water was fairly choppy, which made balancing challenging, but Alison and I are fairly confident and we had fun. Since the water was choppy we were the only non-motorized watercraft on the ocean at the time. We didn't stay out for too long and then we headed back to our villa to relax. We enjoyed floating in the pool and spending quality time together. Alison also took a little nap. 

Before too long it was time to get cleaned up for dinner. We ate at a Mediterranean restaurant, Yasmeen, that was very authentic. It was delicious food, but there was a lot. We couldn't finish a good portion of it. Alison's favorite part of the meal was the bread and sauces (hummus, tzitki, and baba ganoush). One of the more unique aspects of our meal was dessert. We asked our waiter for recommendations and he brought us some fried, sweetened cheese. It was truly delectable and incredibly unique. After dinner we called it a night! 

A quick storm blew through while we were getting ready for dinner. After it passed there was a double rainbow over the ocean.

Dinner views

We love the way our pool looks lit up a night