March 18, 2014: “My heart is so full I could cry.” Those were the words Jen spoke as we waited for our seaplane back to Male.  The 5 days went so fast, but were also so incredibly low-key and invigorating. I’ve never been somewhere so unpretentious for the luxury it brings.  Simply unforgettable. Today we putzed around the reef some more, Jen went to get a massage, then we packed up our stuff by noon and hung out on the beach until our 5:30pm seaplane departure.

Then… the adventure really began.  The seaplane made a landing at a small 15’x30’ dock in the middle of the Indian Ocean to wait for a storm to pass through. Problem was, sunset was fast approaching and seaplanes don’t fly from sunset to sunrise.   No problem, we got the clearance to take off…. but the left propeller won’t start.  So there we are. Stranded at sunset.

Enter the GM of the Conrad, who was conveniently on our flight and heading to the same Singapore Airlines flight as we were.

He pulls out his phone, makes a call, and a speedboat magically appears. (With gusto I might add, as it ran up onto the dock and about knocked someone’s luggage into the ocean!)

So then we board this speedboat, which takes off at 40mph towards who knows where. Apparently there is an airport nearby. We pull up to a dock, are told to hop in a van, and not to worry about our luggage (?!?).  We enter a building (the “terminal”, where someone is hand-writing our boarding passes from a sheet. We are then escorted into a ‘VIP’ room, which basically means “this room has chairs and a toilet.”  We board a FlyMe flight from Maamigili to Male, and make it on time for our flight to Singapore. 

So many questions… who paid for this? Who arranged it? How did the airport have a printout of our names and info that quickly? Who the heck is FlyMe? Is my luggage on the plane?

But hey… like I said, we made it. :)