After eight weeks in the Maldives, I can easily say Dhigurah Island in the southern part of Ari Atoll was my favorite stop.  What made it so wonderful?  It’s a little bit of all the best in the Maldives. Tourism in the Maldives is HUGE, but much of it is private...

One of the things I have always loved about cruising is that we go to places that are very hard or impossible for a normal tourist to visit.  For example, Beveridge Reef or the Lau Group of Fiji.  In planning our Indian Ocean crossing, we had one special stop that we...

Years of planning, outfitting, and cruising around the world will come to a finale in less than one year.  That year is going to go by so fast, and before you know it, we will be in the Caribbean, crossing our wake.  We are estimating to be there in April of 2020....

Despite trying to swim with whale sharks in Ningaloo, and actively looking for them while sailing up Southeast Asia, I never managed to get a swim in with these amazing animals.  While, yes, technically I did swim with one in the Maldives, it wasn’t quite the...

It all started with a little congestion in my ear. I first noticed it while snorkeling off Rasfari Island with our friends on Slow Flight.  We were looking for the manta ray cleaning station that was supposedly in this area.  I didn’t feel the pain until I tried...

The Maldives may be known for its beautiful water and luxury resorts, but there are still pockets of important Maldivian culture to be found if you know where to look.  We found one of these on Thulhaadhoo Island, a small part of the Baa Atoll in the northwest Maldives....

A small atoll in the Maldives named Dholhiyadhoo was set to be the home of a new, luxury resort in the Maldives from the same company that built the Zitahli Kuda-Funafaru Maldives.  The project was slated to be finished with a grand opening in 2011. ...

Most of the tourism in the Maldives is all-inclusive resorts or liveaboard dive boats.  There are definitely some benefits of the tourism industry here, such as the government requiring resorts to employ a certain percentage of locals or the tourism industry boosting the...

Exercise has always been a part of our lives so it would make sense that we would exercise onboard Starry Horizons.  However, it’s taken over four years to develop some good habits and settle into an exercise routine. Before Cruising Back in land life, David and I both...

Our AIS (Automatic Identification System) is one of our favorite electronics on the boat.  It helps us make better navigational decisions, especially in high traffic areas or ship channels.  However, while cruising through South East Asia, we encountered a lot of...