Our tourist promotion video for Bandos Island Resort & Spa in North Male’ Atoll Maldives. © Bell Andersen & Steve Gatto

From our honeymoon October 2008. The Beach Villa and Spa Water Villa at the Conrad Maldives

Maldives April 2010 Running time 3 mins 16 sec Video I took during a week in the Maldives in April 2010. We didn’t do much, which of course is the point of staying on a tiny tropical island - you can stroll around Velassaru with your feet in the sea in less than 20 minutes. We divided our time between sitting on the beach, swimming and snorkelling in the lagoon, keeping cool in our bungalow during the fierce midday sun, more swimming and beach-bathing, before eating exquisite food every evening and doing it all again the next day. There were some majestic thunderstorms at night which lit up the sea like daytime and reminded us that we were on a tiny speck in the middle of the vast Indian Ocean. There was also a day when it rained heavily for an hour, which freshened the air a little, but mainly it was baking hot, bright, sunny, and most important of all, peaceful. Stationed along the beach were three (according to my book of Sri Lankan birds) Western Sea Egrets. When not resting in the shade of a beach umbrella, they would occasionally catch a tiny black and white sea snake or some little fish from the waters edge, all the while keeping an eye on the other egrets making sure they weren’t encroaching on their bit of beach. Foraging through the undergrowth were White-breasted Waterhens. Cute and utterly tame birds that were our almost constant companions. There was lots of other wildlife as well; fruit bats, ghost crabs, various lizards, and of course, a great abundance of …

This is a short video of our holiday taken in September 2008 at the Coco Palm Dhuni Kolhu in the Baa Atoll of the Maldives. The weather was beautiful and the island was perfect. This footage was taken with a Sony HDR-FX1e.

conrad hilton maldives 2009