One of the things that strikes you most as you arrive in Male is the dependence on travelling on the sea to get anywhere and do anything.  As soon as you exit the airport terminal, you are confronted with a huge array of taxis to take you to your resort. The difference here is that these are boats, among palm trees, on the most amazingly coloured water!  The transfer to Bi-Ya-Doo took around an hour on a fairly fast boat.  After you pass by Male, the capital, you head south to enter the South Male Atoll.  This entry is quite a surreal experience.  Whilst the water outside the Atolls can be quite choppy, within the Atolls it seemed to be mirror flat.  The line of the Atoll boundary is quite clear as you approach it, with small breaking waves above coral that you cannot see from the boat.  As you go through one of the well charted gaps into the Atoll, the surrounding water takes on a mystical calmness.  All around the horizon you can see the waves breaking on the edge of the Atoll.  It is almost like being protected by an invisible force-field.  Islands can be seen all around the horizon.  Occasionally you pass near a resort island, with rooms above the lagoon on stilts like on a movie set.

Bi-Ya-Doo
Bi-Ya-Doo is a little unusual, as it is entirely within the Atoll, whilst many of the resort islands are on the edge of the Atoll, and therefore have a "sea" side as well as an "Atoll" side.  The island is certainly paradise - but I guess most of the islands around here are.  However, there are so many nice features about Bi-Ya-Doo that make it so pleasant, that we cannot imagine finding a nicer place in the Maldives.  For starters, it is small and contained. There are three jetties that stick out just to the coral slopes, thus allowing boats to reach the island safely.  The sand beaches go round most of the island, and he sand is a pristine white coral sand that we thought only existed in Hollywood!  The accommodation is good and constrained to a few parts of the island, in two storey blocks.  There are under a hundred rooms, and so never more than 200 people on the island.  The fact that the accommodation is in blocks means that you have large bits of the island without rooms, which is nice for a walk to "get away from it".  The plants and trees are well maintained, and there is a well cleaned path that goes all the way around the island (it is 880 m long!).  There is a restaurant that serves wonderful food - and a bar outside, under a few coconut palms, by the beach.  Also, a little surprisingly, there is a football pitch!  This is for the staff, who have accommodation in the centre of the island.

The rooms are not the most modern we have seen  - but certainly clean.  It is difficult to do justice to the setting of the rooms, with the glass doors opening straight onto the beach and a hammock for two.  The pictures here should help!

It is worth saying here that the staff were always friendly and charming, and everything was always "perfect" - to the extent that staff could even be seen sweeping the beaches, etc.  Indeed, somehow, our room was always perfectly cleaned whilst we were at breakfast - even if we were only away for twenty minutes...

One advantage we liked about the island was that we could go off and do different things if we wanted (one of us snorkel, whilst the other read a book) - but that it was never difficult to find each other on an island 200 by 300 m!  The island was never crowded - indeed you sometimes wondered where all the people were (probably diving!).  We had been a little concerned in advance about the feeling of being trapped on such a small island, and of getting bored.  Far from this, we found that there was plenty to do.  I think it has to do with the available choice.  If you are in a resort in, say, Spain - there is always the knowledge that there are 101 castles and things to see - and this makes for restlessness.  Here, the whole scope changes, and the fact that you know there is nothing else just makes you calmer and changes your thresholds to the choices on offer.  The most stressful decisions of the day become "shall I snorkel on the south or East of the Island", and "which book shall I read next?"

The sister island of Villivaru is close by, and owned by the same company.  We made use of the free Dhoni transfer, which runs at various times through the day.  It was nice to visit a different island, but if we were honest, we much preferred Bi-Ya-Doo.  Villivaru is smaller, and you get the feeling that there is no beach on the island not fronted by accommodation (especially as they are single-floor).

Its easy to get into the relaxed rhythms of Maldives resort-life.  The only thing to keep you alert is the threat of falling coconuts (you can occasionally hear the sound of them hitting the ground as you wander around).

You probably get the picture - but the Island of Bi-Ya-Doo is a very nice place indeed!