Saving Money in Mahibadhoo

In order to try and save a little bit of money and be more on a budget than we have been so far, (I mean, we have to make our savings last a year to be fair!!). We chose to take the slow ferry from South Ari Atoll back to Malé. This ferry goes from Mahibadhoo, which is the capital island of the atoll, and only goes 3 times a week.

Mahibadhoo is only a few islands over from Dhigurah, and there is an inter island public ferry going once daily, which cost us just 22 MVR each. But there are many islands in this atoll which are inhabited, and are easy to get to Mahibadhoo in time for the big ferry. We only needed to be there at 11am on Tuesday, so why did we choose this island???

Well, in all honesty there were much nicer islands we could have stayed. Omadhoo, for instance, one island further north, is quite a nice one, with a lovely bikini beach. However, I read that Mahibadhoo house reef is the best in the whole region. They even have a black coral garden according to Google maps. And since most of the time on the trip was spent under the water, not on land, we figured “the best house reef” was a better option for us.

Which was a good job really, as Mahibadhoo is not much of a looker… There are basically no green spaces, and the bikini beach is a bit run down, full of plastic, glass and rubbish, with the screening panels around it all collapsing and broken… There was a lot of construction ongoing when we were there too. I mean, there’s A LOT of construction ongoing on every island we visited, but this one literally had a JCB on a floating platform in the jetty, and a huge mosque being built by the beach. Plus about 10 other buildings half built…

But it was ok because of the snork-…. Oh wait no… A storm had rolled in and the sea was very choppy and the skies very dark… Not ideal snorkelling weather at all… ☹️ We still attempted it, and I saw a baby moray eel, which I’ve never seen before and was actually kind of cute, trying to be intimidating haha, but getting a snorkel full of water every wave is not enjoyable, so we waited for calmer weather and hoped the next day would be OK.

I also still had a bit of a migraine, so whilst we waited for the storm to pass, we snoozed and rested in the room. We were staying at Raalhu Fonu guesthouse, which was good value for money for what it was. We even got a free upgrade to a bigger room, since nobody else was staying here.

We ate every meal on the island at a little restaurant called “Delish”, which was actually pretty delish! And had a couple of resident parakeets, one of which gave Dave the full pirate treatment, by jumping on his shoulder. We could only placate it with poppadoms!

The next day was still stormy in the morning, so we only managed to FINALLY get into the water in the late afternoon, about 3pm, and even then, it was still a little choppy. At this point I was wondering if we should have stayed somewhere else, a different island, but in this weather, we would have just been inside our room anyway…

When we finally got to the reef, we were fairly disappointed… It was barely alive and was mostly bleached and broken on the sea floor, it was very sad to see actually. There were still many fish, clinging on to what little coral there was, and we saw an Eagle ray (I think, well, it was some kind of mobula) too, accompanied by a companion trumpet fish, which was definitely a highlight.

After speaking to the guesthouse manager, he told us that this damage is very recent, literally only from the last 6 months ish, and before that, yes indeed the reef was very very good, he said…

I guess this is the reality of climate change at the moment, the most fragile ecosystems like coral reef, suffer first ☹️

That evening we went on a trip with the hotel – As when we first checked in, the guesthouse owner met us, and asked us if we wanted to go and see nurse sharks one evening. I had read and seen online many people snorkeling with nurse sharks in the Maldives so I (wrongly) assumed this is what he meant, and we agreed to go on a trip.

We did eventually learn that the excursion did not include snorkelling, which was OK, but we found out after the trip started, that it definitely wasn’t what we expected at all…

The tour took us over to neighbouring island, Omadhoo, and we spent the first 1.5 hours “exploring the island”, which started off a little depressing and, for me at least, just felt like “have a look at where you could have stayed”!!! Haha! As it was much nicer here than Mahibadhoo. But actually, it was nice to spend time here.

Then after sunset, we walked down to the Southern pier, where there were lots of local fishermen. Once they’ve caught their fish, they prepare them on the end of the pier and throw the entrails into the water. Which over time has attracted many nurse sharks and rays who now come here every night to feed on the easy pickings. Our guide also bought a few scraps of fish to feed to them too, and we sat watching the sharks and rays, which was quite cool. But since it was dark the footage isn’t that great.

Then we drove the boat back to Mahibadhoo in the pitch black, with no lights… The driver and guide were using Google maps to navigate us 🤣 But we did get back safely.

The next day was Tuesday, and the day to get the ferry back to Malé, we packed up and headed to the harbour, laden with snacks (“Chips More” (cookies) were our favourite, and the chilli balado Cassava chips!).

The ferry was 53 MVR each! That’s about £2.50. And took us just over 4 hours to get back to Malé. It was a pleasant journey, but the slow boats we got were much much hotter than the speed boats, with very little wind and air movement in the boat, they were swelteringly hot, and positioning was absolutely key – Usually whichever side is in the shade, and generally speaking, the back of the boat is more breezy. Luckily, for this 4 hour trip the boat was pretty empty and we got back and shade fine.

It’s a real shame about the weather the last few days, since we only had 2 nights in Mahibadhoo, we weren’t able to probably explore the water and check the house reef fully. But from what we saw close to the bikini beach, it’s seems not to be in the condition it used to be, based on the reviews and things I had read before coming. What a shame. And I do hope it’s not the case for the whole reef.

If the sea had been calmer, we might have explored further into the reef, or even tried the black coral garden on the north of the island.

I think if we were doing the trip again, I would stay at Omadhoo. Or… Scratch that, I think we would stay fully in Baa Atoll, and not bother with another atoll at all… Just trust the MTCC website and use the public boats within that atoll to explore more islands. As it seems Baa atoll was the best snorkelling, more natural, less touristy, more cost effective…. Certainly the best value for money…

Anyway, we still enjoyed seeing some more Maldivian islands. Mahibadhoo was definitely better for more authentic Maldivian culture, less touched by tourism, which was good. But next stop, Hulhumale!

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