For those of you interested in the surf quality, yes we got some sick waves ranging from 2 metres plus down to a bit less than a metre. The quality and the shape was always there. If you were thinking about going – stop thinking and go! How far and how long is what you need to figure out. Like a lot of trips like these – it’s not a holiday, it’s an adventure.

We flew into Male from Singapore and jumped on a domestic flight to Kaadedhdhoo – (lots of vowels and consonants but I still can’t pronounce it). It was windy and the plane was small and the airstrip smaller, the pilot banged the Focker Down with experience and precision getting most of the wheels on the runway at one time. It was a tough landing and the looks of shock on the passengers’ faces were enough to tell me that they would be looking forward to their first drink once off the plane. As it’s a Muslim country, that first drink had to be a cup of tea or some other such thing.

Over the next few days, we surfed several well known and lesser known reef breaks as well as had a bit of look at a few of the beaches and islands. This is the part where the first alarm bells started to ring. Rubbish and I don’t mean a little bit of rubbish, I mean rubbish in large quantities spoiling the beautiful “unspoilt beaches and lagoons”.

Plastic bottles by the millions, nappies, clothes, various other bits of flotsam and jetsam littered the beaches and the waterways and was a constant eye sore during the trip. We had not yet made the traverse to the central Atolls at this stage and were still well south which is lightly populated – but the rubbish was still in our faces most of the time.

So where the hell does it come from?? 

There are a lot of charter boats working all the atolls in both dive and surf adventures. Based on what I saw happen on our charter boat I would have to say that a fair bit of it comes from these charters. It was the norm to go through about 20 litres + bottles a day of water on the boat – all of which it seemed to end up getting turfed over the side while we’re transiting from one place to another.

The company I chartered with will be made aware of this in a separate note, but I would assume based on the amount of rubbish around that it is a regular occurrence for the charter boats to ditch their crap and hope that the wind and the sea take it to places that it will be never be seen again. I used to believe in the tooth fairy too.

The problem of rubbish in the Maldives is nothing new and several articles have already been written that show graphic detail and bemoan the situation. This link to an article by the Guardian in the UK is but one simple example. 

I am sure the locals contribute to the rubbish issue, but they are locals and they will need to deal with this as is seen fit given what they can do to get rid of it. BUT – the Charter Boat companies need to take more responsibility for the impact they are having on this paradise being spoilt.

As we moved further north still getting great waves and as population became denser, the rubbish issue obviously became worse. We saw snorkelers pushing plastic water bottles aside around the Sultans Break in the northern Atolls, we saw rubbish piled up on the beaches and just generally crap everywhere.

For all you surfers and divers that are thinking of going to the Maldives with any of the charter companies, put some bloody pressure on them to get more green about the way they dispose of their boat waste, both plastic and “otherwise”. They should have a green policy or some other such thing that they can live by. I know we would not stand for it in our own country, so why should we have different standards off shore?