Maldives & Cruising the Indian Ocean

 March 12, 2025

I feel we are all islands...in a common sea. ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh

After several sea days of driving rain lashing us even though the ocean itself was smooth as glass, we fetched up in Male, Maldives this morning. It's an independent nation of over 1100 individual coral islands spread out over 90,000 square kilometers of Indian Ocean. 

This is the Google maps-eye view of part of the Maldives island chain. It looks almost like a necklace.. And in fact there are 26 such necklaces out in this patch of the Indian Ocean that are part of Maldives and each of these atolls are home to several islands, not all of which are inhabited. 

Even so, the country is the smallest in Asia with a total land mass of only 115 square miles! The average elevation of the country is only a little more than 4 ft above sea level with the absolute highest natural point at only 7'10 feet above the waves. 

It wins the dubious honor of being the lowest lying country in the world. 

There are only half a million residents of Maldives, but over 200,000 of them live on the capital island of Mahe. 

Together with the large influx of tourists each year, this creates a unique problem for a tropical paradise. 

Garbage!

In each atoll, an uninhabited island is used as the "dump" for the inhabited ones. 

Our new cruise director, Cordelia, told us all the weather reports were discouraging. The best one predicted 65% chance of rain and the worst torrential downpours. It's the month of Ramadan and Maldives is 98% muslim. No shops would be open. The National Museum we'd intended to visit was closed. We would not be allowed to take water with us and drink it in public. So a visit to the city didn't sound too welcoming. 

Our other option was a beach day (6 hours) on one of the resort islands in the atoll where the dietary laws weren't enforced. But we were listed in the last group to make the 20 minute tender to the shore plus a 30 minute ride in a smaller boat to the island. There would be no beach chairs or umbrellas to be had by the time we arrived. If we were caught in rain and there was no way to shield my O2 concentrator, it could short out and I can't lose my source of supplemental oxygen. 

So we decided to spend our beach day on our floating resort, the Viking Sky! I put on my blue beach dress and we had a leisurely lunch on the fantail. Our evening wait staff were stationed there, so Putu and Komang spoiled us rotten. We had a lovely visit to the spa. I had a pedicure. And the ship felt like our private yacht! 

A drain the ocean view of the Indian Ocean. The rifts and ridges are evidence of the shifting of tectonic plates

I'm sure some of you are wondering what's going to happen to such a vulnerable collection of islands if the ocean levels rise (as they've been doing since the end of the last ice age and were much higher than today 120,000 years ago, give or take a millennia)

The answer is the future is grim for Maldives. But part of the reason for that lies in its formation. These are coral islands, like a larger version of the coral ring that surrounds Bora Bora. The hot spot under the Indian plate that created the origional volcano in the center has moved and continues to move as India crushes itself under the plate to further raise the Himalayas. The volcanoes left in the wake of the hot spot provide ideal places for coral reefs to grow and become coral islands as the dead volcano itself decays and sinks into the sea. All that's left are the low-lying strands of islands which inevitably will also be overtopped by the ocean around them. It is, as they say, the "circle of life."

The Maldivians are experimenting with sea walls, reclaiming more land from sea Dutch-fashion, trying to build artificial islands as the Emeratis have done in Dubai, and most ambitious of all, have proposed constructing a "floating city" anchored to the sea bed where residents will work and live in a totally walkable environment that will rise and fall with the water level. Each "city" is expected to house 50,000 people. 

And is the most expensive solution by far. Astronomically so.

Perhaps a better one, though I'm sure an unpopular idea, is relocation. Humans are migratory creatures. We tend to move to places we deem better for our lives and families.I speak from experience. We've lived in 9 different states, 4 different time zones throughout our married life and flirted with the idea of living and working abroad more than once. 

Home is something you carry with you.

As for humans being able to control the rise and fall of ocean levels, I'm highly dubious. It's been rising and falling without us for the life of the planet. It's a little like a flea thinking it can stop the dog from wagging its tail.

One time an art teacher on a cruise gave us only orange and black to paint a seascape and I thought she was daft. Then I cruised the Indian Ocean. This photo is totally untouched.

Does anyone else see an indigo chenille bedspread pattern in the ripples on this ocean?

The Indian Ocean is very placid. It's due to the coriolus effect which causes winds to be swept away from the equator to both the north and south, leaving a smooth path across the middle. Woe to the sailing ship who found itself in the doldrums. 

However it's been great for me. I haven't had to wear a scopolamine patch since Darwin. 

PS. It didn't rain a drop while we were in the Maldives. But I tend to burst into flames like a vampire in sustained sunlight, so we still made the right choice.