I was up bright and early for my first booked trip - to see Manta Rays and hopefully swim with them. Bari had already warned me that because of the current, they were probably going to staying down near the seabed, but promised I would have a clear view, so I was ridiculously excited. I managed to contain the urge to jump up and down, clapping my hands like a child - but only just.
Adam (the tour guide) was waiting for me by reception and we made our way to the little harbour.
It's worth mentioning that the Holiday Village Retreat, organises it's own trips directly with the boat captains and as the Guest House accommodates just 8 people (for now - Bari has plans!), when you book a trip - it's just for you.
Adam - the tour guide
Every tour or excursion I have ever taken, has involved coaches, tour guides with microphones, fixed schedules and a bunch of other tourists. So to be going on a trip entirely alone, with everything arranged around your preferences, is something really special.
At the harbour, we waited for a few moments - with Adam apologising profusely that the boat wasn't there the instant we arrived. I told him not to worry, but he ran off to find the Boat Captain anyway.
Seconds later he was back telling me the boat was coming now and quite honestly, it can only have been about 3 minutes from the time we arrived to me stepping aboard. More apologies from the Captain and his mate for keeping me waiting - the Maldivians, clearly take their time keeping and customer service very seriously -
 people after my own heart!
So far, the only boat I had been on was the "ferry" from Male to Bodufolhudhoo ( Bod for short - my nickname not theirs). I had expected a big old, slow moving passenger ferry, but it was in fact, a 26 seater speed boat.   Based on that experience and me being the only passenger, I imagined this boat was likely to be a tiny 2/4 seater speed boat - wrong again!
Don't get me wrong - this was not a big boat - but it had padded seating all around and a little covered area so you could get out of the sun.
The boat Captain, Ahmed
and his mate Ibrahim, were 2 of the friendliest people you could wish to meet - full of smiles, as they helped me aboard.
They seemed particularly happy that I was to be their passenger and 2 seconds later I found out why.
Adam had clearly let them know beforehand that I was a heavy smoker, so the minute we were under-way, he waved a cigarette in the air and said "It's ok?
To reply, I whipped my cigarettes out of my bag, waved them at him, gave him a massive smile and said "of course".Â
I'm so used to not being able to smoke anywhere - especially on any form of transport, that I naturally assumed that I had 2 "cigarette free" hours ahead of me, but I still had them with me - just in case..  You can imagine my delight to be on a boat with 3 other smokers.  (It turns out Adam and the Captains mate smoked as well). I love this place!!!
Don't get me wrong, they are so tuned in to pleasing the customer, I'm sure they wouldn't dream of lighting up if they had a boat full of non smokers - so please don't be put off - this place should be on everyone's bucket list.
As we headed out of the harbour and out to sea, I discovered they all spoke some English and we exchanged the usual pleasantries. Where was I from, did I have family, where did my son & daughter live, was I enjoying Bod (except they can actually pronounce the full name properly, something I have yet to master). Then the captain asked how old I was!
Bodufolhudhoo from the boat
I was a little taken aback, because of course in Western society, it's not considered terribly polite to ask a more "mature lady", her age. But I wasn't in Europe and I'm still woefully ignorant of local customs, so I smiled and told him - "64". Now as we all know, the correct response should be "really - you don't look it" but Ahmed, just nodded and smiled. So I can only assume that he didn't know how to say that in English, or he is a man that doesn't tell lies!!!!! I think it's probably the latter.
As we sped away from the harbour, I got my first proper look at Bod in it's entirety. Arriving on the ferry, I hadn't realised we were approaching my island, so didn't pay close attention. But now I had the opportunity to have a proper look and as we moved further from land a few other small islands came into view. Some clearly inhabited, some obviously not and I spotted at least one "resort" island (easily identified by the cool over-water bungalows).
Then we were in open ocean, heading to Manta Point -a spot in the middle of nowhere, where the giant Rays come to feed. How these guys find it, I have no idea.  I couldn't see any navigation equipment and if there was some, Ahmed the Captain definitely didn't look at it.  However he did have his phone by him which had some sort of App open, showing a map ( or should I call it a chart) of the sea, so maybe that was it. Anyway, he was so busy chatting, he didn't look at that much either.
As we started to slow down, we pulled up near to another small boat that appeared to have stopped. There were only 2 guys on board and I couldn't see anyone in the water, so wondered what they were doing.
The lads told me to get ready to go, so it was fins and snorkel on and over the side of the boat, into the water. This wasn't anything like as impressive as it sounds - I could actually touch the water from inside the boat if I leaned out a bit, so I didn't have very far to go.
I attempted to learn to scuba dive in Honduras a few years ago ( but that's another story), and part of the training included how to enter the water from height without your mask filling up with water, or losing it completely, or drowning because you forget to clear your snorkel as you pop back up. ( I've done this - and a lung full of seawater is no fun).
I am, as you may have gathered, a little overweight, so I reckoned the chances of me being able to gracefully jump in and remain on the surface, even with this tiny little drop, were very slim indeed (unlike me).
So I placed my hand across the top of my mask, (just as I was taught), took a big breath and jumped in. The other great advantage of being my size, is that although your weight will initially take you down a bit further than normal sized people - us fatties, float really, really, really, well. This means that you shoot back up to the surface pretty quickly and it takes quite a lot to make us sink. I'm such a good floater, I reckon that at least 6 people could use me as a life raft in an emergency.
Having remembered to blow the water out of my snorkel, I looked down and just hovered while my eyes adjusted.
At first I couldn't quite work out what I was seeing because, lets be honest here, most of us have only ever seen pictures of Manta Rays, so it's hard to get a handle on their size. But I was pretty sure they didn't have legs, posh underwater cameras and make streams of bubbles when they breathe.
The other boat had obviously discharged a bunch of divers, who were down at the bottom with the best seats in the house and quite frankly, were getting in my way.
There were 5 enormous Mantas down there and as I watched, they just swam round and round in one big circle - very slowly, very gracefully.
I would dearly have loved to free dive down to get a better look, but I'm fully aware of my own capabilities and I knew there was no chance.
Once upon a time, I trained to be a swimming teacher and to qualify, you had to have a life saving certificate. One of the requirements was to pick up a brick from the bottom of the diving pit in the pool which was 15 feet (4.5 meters) deep and then bring it back up - so 30 feet in all. Well that was perfectly possible at the age of 20, with a little size 12 figure and lungs that hadn't been subjected to many many years of cigarettes. Now 44 years on, with a very floaty body that's 3 dress sizes larger and a limited amount of puff - there was no way I was going to risk it. How stupid would I look, if I flipped up my fins and managed to get about 4 feet down, before shooting back up feet first! The guys on the boat would have been able to dine out on that story for years.
Fortunately, Adam is a bit of an accomplished free diver and must have realised my dilemma, because he swum over and offered to take my camera down to get some close up shots.
While I watched him dive, wondering how his eardrums don't explode, I noticed that not all the scuba divers were down on the bottom. A lady was about two thirds of the way down clinging on for dear life, to what I assume, was an instructor. I thought about this for a minute and decided she was either a qualified diver who was terrified of the Mantas or she was doing an assisted dive. I had done a couple of these, quite successfully I might add, on holiday in the Red Sea. You don't need to go through days and days of training, because the instructor takes care of
all the complicated safety stuff. You just need to know the hand signals, some very basic safety and how to equalise your ears.
I decided no-one would be stupid enough to pay to do a Manta trip if they were scared of them and so she must be doing an assisted dive.
And I was jealous - and just a teency bit irritated.
There was I, stuck at the surface and she had the opportunity to get up close and personal with these magnificent beasts and wasn't taking it.
So for the first time since my nightmare in Honduras - I was really sorry I had given up, before completing the diver training course.
I was actually quite shocked at this. Until this moment, I had never regretted my decision for a second. I found diving, ridiculously stressful and so completely different to how I feel when I'm snorkelling, that I never imagined, in a million years, that I would even consider strapping a tank on my back again.
But there it was - the idea popping up in my head that maybe I could try again - or at least do an assisted dive to see the Mantas again.
Once the divers left, I had a complete uninterrupted view and even though they were down at the bottom, it was incredible to watch them.
 We stayed at Manta point for quite a long time but little by little, other boats started to appear - presumably from other islands. It was time to leave - before the rush started.
Now I understood the early start. Â Bari, and the boys wanted to make sure we were there before everyone else started arriving, so that I would get a great view.
As I swum back to the boat, I suddenly had a horrible thought. How on earth was I going to get back on board. If there were no steps ( and I hadn't seen any) I was going to have to haul myself out of the water and you won't be surprised to know - I'm not very good at that!
There have been 2 memorable occasions later in my life when I had to do this and both times I failed miserably. After trying to pull myself up far enough to get a leg up, I just didn't have the strength to
drag the rest of me over the side. So someone had to come to help me and even that wasn't enough.
In the end - it took two of them to haul this lump of blubber back onto the boat. It wasn't pretty and I was horribly embarrassed..
I needn't have worried. As we approached Ibrahim moved to the back, produced a little ladder from thin air and let it down into the water.
Now comes the good bit - to get your fins off in the water and back on the boat without dropping them - use the quick release catch on the side to loosen the back strap and then ease them off carefully - Simple!  Well that's the theory anyway.
Why I always forget to leave my mask and snorkel on so that I can see what I'm doing, remains one of life's mysteries. So I inevitably end up faffing around trying to feel my way to the catch and once I've got it and released the strap, then comes a huge tussle to get the thing off. When I'm sitting down in shallow water, they slide off really easily, but as soon as I'm hanging on to the edge of a boat in deep water, it feels like they've been super-glued to my feet. What they need of course, is a good hard tug, but there is always the worry that if you pull too hard, they will fly off your feet, out of your hands, over the boat and take up residence at the bottom of the ocean.
Fortunately, Adam had kept his mask on and removed the stubborn fins for me.
I managed to climb the little ladder without falling off and make it back to my seat without tripping over anything.  I consider this to be another great achievement!
Back at Holiday Village Resort, I bumped into Bari and before my brain could object, my mouth was enquiring about the diving centre on the island.
Bari said he would get a price list for me and take me down to talk to them if I wanted. Well I still wasn't sure, that it was, what I wanted, but I figured it could do no harm to ask anyway.
After a massive bowl of Maldavian soup for lunch, I settled into my usual routine. Which was to rest while the sun was as it's hottest and catch up with the goings on in the world. Unfortunately, the massive rainstorm the day before had played havoc with the already, not very fast, wifi and I couldn't connect at all, so I just blogged and had another sort through the vast quantities of photos I had taken.
At about 4.30 I wandered down to the beach for my late afternoon snorkel and it really doesn't matter how many times you go - there is always something new to see. Today it was a small White Ray, hiding in the sand. It was so well camouflaged, I would never have spotted it if it hadn't moved. There was also this big long pink thing and I'll let you judge for self what it might be!!!
After a nice long leisurely meander along the reef (still no sign of my turtle), I slowly paddled back to the shore, slid my fins off with ease, (seriously - why can't they always come off like that?) and made my way up the beach to my sunbed.
I decided sit down and relax for a bit. The sun
was getting lower in the sky, the view was fabulous and I thought it would be nice, to not do anything for a little while.Â
After approximately 30 seconds I was up again. I used to be able to lie on the beach for hours, but not any more, so I started to pack up my things, running through my mental check-list as I went.
Swim top and shorts - check
towel - check
hair band (to keep my hair from floating in front of my mask) - check.
Sea Drops (to put into your mask to stop it fogging - you can just spit into it but I never seem to have enough) - check
Camera - check
Fags, lighter and mini dustbin ashtray - check
Sarong - check
Fins and boots - check
Mask and Snorkel............ Mask and Snorkel...... oh for f***s sake where have they gone.
On the sun-bed - no, under the sun-bed - no, on the sand nearby - nope!
Oh shit, shit, shit. I must have dropped it in the sea as I was getting the bloody fins off.
Well all I can say is thank heavens for lovely clear water and no strong current, because just floating under the surface, about 15 feet from the waters edge was something bright Blue.
I waded in and as I got closer, it sort of turned upside down and my snorkel gave me a little wave.
I picked it up, gave it a little hug and breathed a huge sigh of relief.
It would have been possible to hire one of course, but not with my prescription built in and without that, I would see about as well as not wearing a mask at all.
Once I had deposited all my stuff back at the guest house, I returned to the beach just as the sun was going down to take a few more photos.
Later that evening, I saw Bari and we decided to go to chat to the dive guys after my morning snorkel the following day.
And that was it - another amazing day on this amazing island with plenty more to look forward to.......