Bye, bye Little Fish… Handy and all your friends
Another week is drawing to a close, and this time it's the last of the season. The first, lengthy chapter of the Princess Handy 's logbooks ends here for now...she will go into "repair" along with the ship, to return one day, fresher and renewed, ready to tell of new adventures among the coral seas.
This last one was also a seven-day trip full of great surprises... picture-perfect skies, a shining sun, and underwater encounters from happy dreams. Maybe it's the effect of the last week, maybe I'm easily influenced, maybe whatever... but in these last few days the reefs seemed more colorful, the fish more beautiful and numerous, my snorkelers like enchanting mermaids... okay, okay, let's not exaggerate... hahahah. The top-notch encounters, as a grand finale, were certainly not lacking... it's "Manta-fashion-week" . Manta rays at night, manta rays during the day, manta rays from the stern of the boat, manta rays in azure lagoons. Not bad, in short... Even the last trip to Alimatha, the "close encounters" pass, gave us a nighttime experience of exceptional beauty. According to the most experienced divers, it had been months since they'd seen so many sharks all together. At a certain point, a platoon of about a hundred animals materialized out of nowhere. Like silent ghosts, the pale nurse sharks swim in unison in the darkness, forming a dense wall of muscle and fins that fills the entire visual space. I can't resist... I take a breath and immerse myself in the fray... I too swim silently and join the procession. For a moment I'm one of them... "Bread and adrenaline!" The cruise even ends with the icing on the cake... Before reaching Male, a pod of pilot whales cuts across the bow of the Handy, passing just a few meters from the boat and allowing us to admire, in their strange shapes, these massive toothed whales. These months spent at sea have given me, and those who experienced them with me, a taste of the natural wonders of this archipelago . Although the country is not without internal political problems (and who isn't?!) and particularly threatened by rapid global climate change and widespread marine pollution, the Maldives remain, to this day, one of the last underwater paradises on our planet . This may seem banal and perhaps clichéd, but I invite anyone to dive into these seas and they'll be hard pressed to disagree. A liveaboard, specifically the two Princesses Handy and Dhonkamana, gives marine life enthusiasts the opportunity to gain a comprehensive and diverse overview of these coral islands. The experience allows less experienced guests to discover the differences within the reef environment, and more experienced guests to relive never-ending emotions: from diving/snorkeling in ocean passes, rich in large pelagic species and sharks, to inland shallows covered in coral gardens inhabited by a myriad of colorful fish and other fascinating creatures... all interspersed with healthy relaxation on talcum-white beaches. I conclude this logbook by thanking everyone who has helped make these months of work fun and unforgettable. I thank Handy, "home sweet home" and a tireless navigator. I thank the crew with whom I shared hard work and friendship. I thank the boat captains and instructors, who have everything to teach a novice like me and everything I have to learn. Thank you. I thank the guests who make all this possible, and of course, I thank Macana for placing her trust in me. I leave you with this final video, as usual just a few minutes long, a tribute to the beauty of the ocean and its incredible inhabitants. My deepest thanks go to him. Hoping not to see these paradises disappear, I wait for the winds to change, to embark on further adventures and share them with anyone who wants to experience the emotions, sensations, and beauty. THANK YOU.
