{"id":29401,"date":"2019-06-10T21:08:25","date_gmt":"2019-06-10T13:08:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/?p=29401"},"modified":"2026-03-15T13:48:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T05:48:10","slug":"10-days-in-maldives-day-04-sand-bank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2019\/06\/10\/10-days-in-maldives-day-04-sand-bank\/","title":{"rendered":"10 Days in Maldives \u2013 Day 04 \u2013 Sand Bank"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some of the most stunning pictures one can get out of a Maldives trip would be ones taken on sand banks<\/b>. These are tiny little islands with white sand, and little else – no vegetation, no shrubbery and tree cover. Our initial plan was to do a visit to one such island on Day 3, but the overcast weather required us to postpone it. Fortunately, we were blessed with a bright and sunny sky on Day 4 morning, so off we went for it. Our host Sameer had two of his staff come along with him for a \u2018vacation\u2019 as he quipped, so we were very well taken care of.<\/p>\n

The price per person for this half-day outing was a relatively high USD80 (half that for kids), but it was super worth it. The trip as described in the activity guide is three hours, but we ended up spending four hours on the sand bank itself, with another hour spent getting to and back to The Sunrise Huraa. The island is a sort of U-shape, and about 90 meters at the widest point. There were other visitors over the four hours we were on the sand bank, but at no point did it feel congested. From the 11 AM-ish late morning, there were just two other groups of visitors left, both of whom also left in the last half-hour of our stay so we had the entire sand bank to ourselves from that point.<\/p>\n

The length of time we stayed there also afforded two snorkeling outings: we basically just swam from the island, and the water levels were as high as waist-deep to several meters deep. And in under a minute\u2019s swim from the shore, we could see abundant marine life. Though like the last two days, we saw more dead than live corals: not unexpected since we didn\u2019t stray too far from the island. The second of the two snorkeling outings was especially memorable too. Sameer hunted a three-inch-wide crab on the sand bank, broke it into pieces and gave each of us a piece to feed the fishes in the corals. It was quite unforgettable for the kids, as schools of fishes swarmed around us to feed immediately! I missed it as I remained on the island to keep an eye on Peter and also take pictures, but Matt, Hannah and the wife were clearly awed by what they saw.<\/p>\n

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Google Maps’ best guess where we were!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Peter getting helped down by The Sunrise staff.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Bought an outdoor chair from Decathlon the day before we departed: and it was put to very good use.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Very clear waters.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Without even a hint of cloudiness.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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This side of the island had cooler waters and also slightly stronger waves too.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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This is the calmer side of the sand bank, and with warmer waters too.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Very scenic.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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We had the entire sand bank to ourselves in the last stretch.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Sameer hunted and found a crab to demonstrate frenzied feeding in the water.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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There were a few other visitors who came and went, including these two European couples.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Matt of Missouri and me!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Peter knows how to strike a pose – when he feels like it!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Continued in the next post<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some of the most stunning pictures one can get out of a Maldives trip would be ones taken on sand banks. These are tiny little islands with white sand, and little else – no vegetation, no shrubbery and tree cover.<\/p>\n

Read More 10 Days in Maldives \u2013 Day 04 \u2013 Sand Bank<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29406,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[653,655,608,613,615],"class_list":["post-29401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-traveling","tag-maldives-2019","tag-olympus-tg-5","tag-sony-a7-iii","tag-sony-fe-24-105mm-f4-0","tag-tamron-70-200mm-f2-8","wpcat-17-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/blog-2019-maldives-day-04-A7_05573-huraa-sandbank.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29401"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29401\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38524,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29401\/revisions\/38524"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}