Girl time

Carrie and I on Sentosa island enjoying the afternoon at the pool.





Our place fully furnished

It has taken a few weeks to find places to put everything we brought over from the States and to get all the pictures on the wall but it is now starting to feel like home. I took these pics today because my parents arrive in a few hours and I figured the place will probably never look nicer!
This is the bridge that I walk over everyday to get from our place (tall buildings on the left) to the grocery store and to the MRT station.

Water Place

study and guest bedroom look out onto this beautiful koi fish pond


entry way, looking from the inside of our apt at the front door.

from the front door looking in

living room with kitchen

living room

master bedrom

kitchen

dining room

guest bathroom

study

guest bedroom

view from dining room looking into kitchen and living room

Maldives Diving

Team Wood Scuba Divers!


My very first diving expereince. I had such a great time learning to dive. In fact my instructor said I was "a natural". Evidently I was very relaxed underwater and used up very little air. Kingsley had to surface about 10-15 minutes before me on every dive. On my second and third dive I had more air than my instructor at the end of the dive. He told me that in 16 years of teaching he had never seen anything like it! Here is what he wrote after I graduated my PADI course:

It was a pleasure doing the course with you.
Especially that you are a very good diver !!!
Hope to have you soon back for the Advanced course.
And I'll work on my air consumption, so I can beat you on that :-)
Warm greetings,
Chris


Great diving video Kingsley put together



Diving in the Maldives from Kingsley Wood on Vimeo.

Lynn getting her PADI certification, exploring the beautiful reefs of the Maldive Islands.




Maldives Dolphins

One of my favorite activities while in the Maldives was a sunset dolphin cruise. I cant resist saying yes to anything that offers a chance of seeing dolphins. The resort stated there was 95% chance we would see dolphins on the cruise, needless to say I was very excited.

A funny story, there was about 10 of us on the boat and at one point the captain said something about how if you tap on the floor of the boat and whistle the dolphins will be attracted to the boat. I am pretty sure he was kidding but there was a lady on the boat who took his recommendation very seriously and kept tapping her feet and whistleing the entire (2 hour boat trip. You can actually hear her in parts of the video. Although it was somewhat annoying at the time, I have to give her credit, we did see lots of dolphins which was fantastic!

I kept leaning further and further over the side of the boat to get closer to them, in fact I think a small part of me was hoping to "accidently" fall in. They are so beautiful and graceful. My favorite was a mama and her baby who came to play in the boat wake for a while. At one point she rolled on her side and looked right at me. It was awesome!



Maldives Furanafushi island

After a day in Male the capital we headed to Furanafushi island (aka paradise)


I have never seen such beautiful water



The sunsets were so beautiful, you had to show up early to claim your spot on the deck to get the best view

I took this picture solo beacuse Kingsley was fast asleep (too much fun in the sun)

We spend the first day relaxing, swimming in the ocean and getting all of our dive times arranged at the dive center.

Maldives- Male

Arrived in Male the capital of the Maldives late last night. It was my first flight on the infamous Singapore Airlines and I have to say it was pretty fantastic!
We took a short boat ride from the airport to Male. I took this photo of the city lights from the slightly bouncy boat.
Male sits on a tiny island, there are less than 100,000 residents. This morning Kingsley and I went for walk and ended up halfway around the island in less than 30 minutes. Very old graveyard, discovered on our walk
We could hear the call to prayer throughout the city 5 times a day

The Maldives converted to islam in 1153. The resorts are very westernized but the capital city is very conservative.

Fish market- no need for a grocery store when you can buy your fish fresh off the boat. This is where the locals go in the afternoon to buy fish for dinner.
Lunch at a little cafe on the beach

Our hotel infinity pool- we watched from the pool as a pod of about 50 dolphins swam by

Our first visitor!

Cman came to visit this last weekend!! She was only able to stay for apx 48 hours so we tried our best to take her to do and see as much as possible with some time left over to just hang out and catch up. She amazingly managed to stay awake during the day and sleep at night despite the almost opposite time zones.
Here are a few photos from our adventure fabulous weekend.

Out to dinner at Clarke Quay
Cman and Kingsley try the fish spa- very funny video below


Having lunch at a indoor hawker center- saw a woman selling drinks off of a segway. Carm thought it was the coolest thing ever and bought multiple drinks from her just so I could take a photo. At the end of lunch and after purchasing quite a few diet cokes Carm confessed "That girl has my dream job!"
Our last night- went to Jumbo seafood on the beach. Carm and I ordered the black pepper crab which was fantastic. We were given matching Jumbo bibs for the occasion.