Our trip had just the perfect ending with a sail trip to Ari Atoll, a trip arranged by Rasdhoo Dive Center. Ari is one of the biggests of the twenty Maldivian atolls, laying just a couple og hours South West of Rasdhoo. Sailing from the Northern part of the atoll to the Southern part of the atoll with the boat we were on would take ten hours, which is quite a lot more than each of the legs that we covered last week on the Dhoni cruise.
The first place visited was a coral reef where we saw sharks and rays at just a five to fifteen meters depth. Afterwards we sailed over to a beutiful spot in the middle of the ocean where it was a really shallow sandy bottom, so that we would have the light turquise color all around us while eating lunch.
The rest of the day was spent snorkelling around and visiting one of the other local islands called Ukulhas. While the crew prepared a barbeque meal on the boat we were let off to have an hour of exploring and watching the sunset from the tourist beach on the island.
On the way back we were just laying silently on deck watching the stars brightly lit up on the sky above us. Looking down at the side of the boat we could also see the bioluminecent plankton sparking up around the boat as the water splashed off the boat, also leaving a trail of light behind us. The sound of the water splashing and the pitch dark, with only some light of the stars and the plankton made it feel like we could easily have fallen to sleep. At the same time it felt like we were already in a dream. A dream that we would first really wake up from when getting on the plane home.
