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MALDIVES
Between islands and atolls,
I found myself alone with the Indian Ocean
The Maldives are not a country—they’re a floating
constellation. From the air, they look like ellipses
drawn across the Indian Ocean, as if someone had
meant to leave the sentence unfinished. The nation
stretches over 1,192 coral islands grouped into 26
atolls, though only about 203 are inhabited. The rest
are fragments of coral, lone palm trees, tiny beaches,
and reefs that shyly peek above the surface. The
capital, Malé, is a dense and most populated island,
standing in stark contrast to the absolute calm that
defines the rest of the country.
My journey began there, in Malé, though calling it
a "beginning" is just a way of speaking. The real
start was the seaplane takeoff.
I had never flown in one before. The engine
roared loudly, the heat was thick, but none of that
mattered once we lifted off. Through the window,
the atolls began to reveal themselves—perfect cir-
cles, impossible shades of blue, turquoise lagoons
encircled by reefs and slender stretches of sand.
It was like flying over watercolours. The pilot wore
flip-flops, the cockpit was open, and the deafe-
ning noise of the engines shattered the peace that
seemed to reign below. We landed directly on the
sea, in the middle of nowhere, and a small floating
dock welcomed us to Raaya by Atmosphere.
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