2005-09-20 - 10:11 a.m.

Maldives, Indian Ocean apparently.

It's a strange old country. Many of the islands are owned by huge hotel chains, so instead of growing up Maldivian, I suppose you grow up Hiltonian or Marriottian. So far the trip has been quite low key, apart from the snorkelling excursion yesterday.

We were being lead by a local flashboy, the decription of whom swings between "dreamy" and "utter show off" depending on your gender / sexual orientation. He lead us out into some admittedly spectacular reef-age but swiftly abandoned his supervisory capacity for twenty minutes of hurtling down to the murky depths to point out turtles and impress the lay-deez, even the ones who were being sick as we swam (snorkellingon a hangover - just say no, kids).

My attention span began to wander and I veered off slightly to have a butchers at the coral, etc. It was actually very cool, and I saw thousands of brightly spotted fish, all tails and fins and bubbles, as well as dozy turtles, eels, baby sharks, mantas, giraffes, anteaters and monkeys. Anyway, I was so engrossed in my little aquatic sideshow that I hadn't realised that I had drifted slightly, er, off-piste. suddenly instead of a vast expanse of nice soft water underneath me I was floating about a quarter inch above jagged, laceration-mongering coral, the fluctuations of the tide threatening to dash me against the watery spikes and put holes where quite frankly there shouldn't be any. I kind of froze, clinging onto a rock to steady myself and suddenly wishing that I had more than a quarter inch of pipe to breath through. The current wasn't getting weaker, and the coral wasn't getting any blunter - I couldn't see anyone, and suddenly the sea was less of a playful kaleidoscope of fun, and more of a piercing rock pit of painful bloody death. I was half way through considering which parts of my body I should make the most effort to protect when out of nowhere came local flashboy, with something of a stern look on his face. He was shouting something I missed due to it being underwater, but the bubbles were anger-shaped and I knew he was a bit peeved. He darted through the reef and handed me a line, then proceeded to weave us back through the rocks to the safety of the open waters, and I rejoined the group in a thankfully gaping open wound-free state. That'll teach me to laugh at instructors, I suppose.

Anyway, one stupid tourist saved, his time was freed up to go back to flirting with vomitting water babes, which he seemed quite happy about and I wasn't going to cast aspertions any more.

Today we're venturing out from our tropical haven to the capital, Male ('mah-lay'), which is like all the other islands except it has office blocks instead of palm trees. It will be nice to see a bit of local colour, though, as opposed to some corporate entity's version of what a desert island should look like. Oh, on the way to dinner we saw a dead manta and I said "It's a shame about ray" but no-one got it, which is perhaps no bad thing.