Day 64(March 9)- Male, Maldives

Unfortunately no snorkeling today. I just didn’t want to take a chance that it wouldn’t be as good as yesterday. Instead I took a tender into the pier/town and walked around to go shopping with a fellow cruise passenger. A gentleman helped us cross the street by making sure traffic stopped, then he took us to his shop. Kinda strange to follow a stranger into a building and up the back stairs not knowing where we were going. I didn’t end up buying anything in his shop and went back outside where another gentleman took us to his shop! All in all we were escorted to three of the four shops we visited. We did make purchases at most of the shops we visited.

On the way back to the tender, we stopped at the local fish market on the pier to see the stingrays. The stingrays eat the fish trimmings after the fishermen clean the fish.

Yesterday was Ramadan in Maldives so many of the shops were closed and there were very few people on the streets. It was a new experience for me to hear the bells ring for prayer.

At the pier we watched the person standing in this boat pick up garbage from the water- another job not found in Cupertino. The water was so clear we could see the fish swimming around
Fish market vegetable stand- photo take by fellow cruise passenger
Some of the white bits are fish trimmings. The eatable portion has been filleted off and the rest thrown back into the ocean. The stingrays eat these trimmings.
Resort seen on way out of Mele. There were many such resorts around the Maldives