"HEAVEN" a Baa Atholhu Travel Page by GandalfOnTour

We spent 2 weeks on the glorious island of Horubadhoo, Located in Baa Atoll, 75km North West of Malé, the capital city of the Maldives. Also known as the Royal Island Resort and Spa. It is one of about 50 islands in the Baa Atoll and we found it to be a little slice of heaven. The island is relatively small, just less than 800m long and 250m wide. It is surrounded by a shallow reef that is ideal for snorkeling and is teeming with sea life. There are so many fish on the reef that means if you don't scuba dive you can still see some incredibly beautiful fish. We were even lucky enough to see a Manta Ray while snorkeling near the main service jetty.

The beaches around the island are amazing. Every day we would walk around the island. There are two very nice sized beaches at either end of the island but to be honest we tended to stick to the beach right outside our villa, it was perfect!!!If you are planning on going to Royal Island I would recommend getting you travel agent to arrange one of the villas on the southern side of the island as the beach has been washed away a bit on parts of the Northern side.

Apart form the great beaches and relaxing times spent lying around and reading, one of the main reasons for us going to the Maldives was to do some diving. In all we did 10 super dives. Between May and July the Baa Atoll is influenced by the southern monsoon, which meant that there was lots of plankton in the water which is the main food for Manta Rays and Whalesharks. Unfortunately we didn't get to dive with a Whaleshark but we did have some special encounters with some Mantas, they truly are amazing creatures. Visability wasn't always great due to the plankton but the diving was out of this world. The abundance of sea life is staggering both in terms of fish and plantlife. I will definitely be back to try out some of the other dive sites as soon as possible