Day 4 - A Glorious Day in the Maldives

Today was a gloriously beautiful day in the Maldives. 

While Alison went to the gym, I rode my bike over to the wedding pavilion area to watch the sunrise. It was a peaceful, calm, and serene morning. 

Alison joined me and we went back to our villa to do some yoga. Today we did our practice outside on the patio. Today's session focused on balance and it felt good to be outside doing yoga by the ocean.

After yoga we went and had a beachside breakfast and we went for a bike ride around the island. It was such a sunny day. 

When we were done biking around the island we relaxed by the pool for a bit. 

When we were done relaxing we headed over to the beach club. We rented a paddleboat and boated out to an island that is at the edge of the lagoon. We noticed this island on our very first day. It is a small, white sandy island with a solitary swing. We never saw anyone on the island. I wondered how we could get out there. Yesterday they told us we could go out there on the stand up paddle boards, but it is a long way, especially if the ocean is rough. We decided the paddleboat would give us a better change of making it. We were correct, the paddleboat was a good way to get to the island, which was a lot further than it looked. We took our waterproof speaker so we had music as we paddled across the lagoon. It was fairly enjoyable, but our leg muscles were burning by the time we made it to the island. It is a beautiful little island. There were a bunch of cool looking shells on the island. I reached down to pick one up and found it was occupied. There were little sea creatures living in the shells. 

We had to row our paddleboat back to the beach club, which was a good workout. We decided to chill for a bit at the beach club and wade out into the ocean. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon. 

Back at our villa, they had cleaned our room for the day. I decided to video a little tour of villa 509. 

We spent the rest of the day lounging at our villa. It was such a beautiful day. The weather could not have been more perfect. The ocean was calm. We went snorkeling a few times off of our deck. The snorkeling was great. We saw all kinds of brightly colorful fishes. Once when we were out at the edge where the ocean drops off deeper we saw a sea turtle. Later I went back into the ocean to chase the pizza floaty, which was blown over the edge of the pool by an errant gust of wind. I decided since I was already in the ocean I would swim around. Alison decided to join me. We were swimming and looking at all of the fish when Alison spotted an octopus among the coral. I didn't have my camera so I asked her to wait there while I swam back to the villa and grabbed it. I would have never been able to find the spot without her. I got the camera and it was still there. We waited and watched and eventually it floated up and moved into another area of the coral. It was really cool to see it move. 

The octopus in motion

In the evening we dressed up for dinner. Tonight we had reservations at Shimizu - a contemporary Japanese restaurant. We were every excited. We went with the Omakase (set) menu. It was incredible. We loved everything. We started with tuna tartare with wasabi soy avocado and wasabi osietra caviar. We then had Shimizu sushi, which was a sampling of 5 different types of sushi. This was Alison's favorite course. This was followed by Tempura vegetables, Hokkaido scallops and rock shrimp. The next course was miso glazed tooth fish - this was divine. Then we took a little breather before the main course of greater omaha black angus Mbs 3-5 with a ginger suzuki sauce. This was my favorite course. For dessert they brought us a adzuki beans cheesecake and matcha chocolate bar. They both hit the spot. The presentation of each food item was exquisite. The service and location were also excellent. This was by far our favorite dining experience. This was the perfect meal to end a perfect day. 

Dinner views