Category: Maldives

Let me just back up to the inception of this trip. If you were bored enough to read our quarantine blogs from March 2020 you may remember that I won 2 free flights anywhere that Qatar Airways flies as a promotion for health care workers (thanks again Kerry for the info!). In the fall of 2020 I bought a fully refundable dream Maldives package for peanuts. Put those two things together, add a lot of luck, a few negative Covid tests, and, voila:

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In the 3 weeks leading up to this holiday, as Covid cases were blowing up all around us, we were self quarantining to give ourselves the best chance of being able to do this holiday. This meant cancelling other adventures, isolating from friends and family, and drowning in the anxiety of every work interaction. There were many moments that I questioned if the holiday would be worth it. (Spoiler alert: it is always worth it!) I was also wondering if I was still someone who craves adventures. (A resounding yes.) Thank goodness for RobO’s unwavering optimism that we could do this.

I knew that I needed this holiday, but the scale of how much it was needed I had no idea. I can feel freedom and relaxation and deep breaths and joy without the buzz kill of the ‘vid creeping in. O yeah, this is a true holiday!

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In typical Olson fashion we have mastered the mix of ‘relaction’. New to the activity list was to try scuba diving. RobO took to it well enough to be able to wield an underwater camera, while I spent the whole time clinging to our instructor trying not to have a panic attack and/or die. In my defence we both had crappy flippers and often felt like we were floating in outer space with no ability to direct our movements. In future I’ll stick with snorkelling, which, around here, is the best I’ve ever seen.

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One morning we were lucky enough to find this guy sleeping outside of our overwater bungalow.

We also saw so many baby sharks that we started to forget to look for them.

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We’ve now moved out of our over-water villa and to a beach villa, which is like the move from the Rose Video empire to Schitt’s Creek. We’ve jokingly nicknamed it ‘the slum’. I guess our infinity pool is now the open ocean. I know one thing for sure, we will be missing our outdoor shower when we leave.

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Next up is 1 more idyllic day followed by 30 hours of travelling, 2 days in Houston, and the trip home. May the Gods be ever in our favour.

It has been a long 2 years since we have left Canada. And now that we have our chance, we did it with some serious style. DawnO was able to secure a pretty amazing deal in the Maldives that we couldn’t pass up. We knew there was a slim chance we’d actually get to go on this trip, but somehow the stars aligned and we found ourselves flying to the Indian Ocean to this island paradise.

It took us 3 days, 2 Covid tests and 1 float plane to get us here and it was all worth it! Our over water bungalow is quite posh with an outdoor shower, outdoor tub and an infinity pool! We can also walk down our back steps directly into the ocean if we feel like a soak in saltwater is in order.

We arrived on Valentines Day so there were a lot of cheesy (pronounced “romantic”) photo displays everywhere. When I was going through the payment with our island host he asked me if I would like to arrange a special Valentine surprise for my wife. I immediately said “hell no” and thought that dodging the $USD$ surprise on my credit card statement was the most romantic thing I could do. However we were unable to avoid the photo display.

Our island is quite small, as it only takes about 30 minutes to walk around the circumference. But there is plenty to do when we are not lounging around our cabin. We have been doing all the things an all inclusive has to offer including playing some tennis, ping pong, eating 3 buffet meals a day and trying out the 60+ island cocktails. DawnO had planned to try 20 by day 5, however she scratched that idea on day 2 after she sampled 9.

There’s more to come as we are here for another 6 days before we make our way to Houston, TX (don’t mess with it), to visit some cousins of mine. Stay tuned.