Explore - Maldives
9 of our closest friends met in Hong Kong to take the new Cathay Pacific flight to Male, the capital of the Maldives which is where we boarded our boat, the Carpe Vita. For most of us this was our first ever surf surfari which we booked through The Perfect Wave out of Australia. Everyone was frothing and eager to surf some rippable waves. We were also stoked to try out our new Float captain boardies and tees which we handed out to everyone on arrival.
The Carpe Vita is a stunning locally built motor yacht complete with it all the necesities you could need, as well as a Dhoni to ferry us out to all the breaks. Our Aussie Surf guide Brian James was awesome with amazing stories and knowledge of the Surf in the Maldives. He did his best to put us onto the best waves on offer depending on the swell direction, tides and wind direction. Likewise with our local guide Anko who made sure we were getting the waves we were after, they both can rip! 
The 11 day trip was nothing short of epic and we lucked out with the Swell pulsing the day after we arrived. We started out north of Male surfing Sultans, Jails and Cokes for the first 3 days which immediately threw us into some ovearhead perfection. We bust out our step ups for a session at Cokes with spitting solid 4-6 foot surf reeling in. Many of us took our beatings but scored some sick waves with relatively mild crowds.
Each day was finished off with beers, hot tubs and dinner at sunset following by more beers and fishing off the back of the boat. Some of us had a bit of rotten luck when it came to fishing, catching coral was super popular most nights. If we werent fishing we were chilling out playing poker or watching movies...depending out quickly you lost.
The rest of the week was spent motoring to the South Male atolls where we scored more sick waves at spots like Riptides and Kates. A particularly memorable session was had at Kates where the outside allowed our longboarders super long rippable walls to get some tip time and bury their rails on cutbacks. The inside was a super hollow, racetrack of a righthander that was uber fun for the short boarders among us. Getting shacked on almost every wave for three hours really became one of the highlights of the trip despite some of us bouncing off the reef after going over the falls!
After venturing south for a couple of days where we also swam with Manta’s and check out Kandooma resort, Brian decided to take us back north to catch an incoming swell. What prevailed over the last three days of the trip really put an exclamation mark to finish things off.We woke up to Sultans on Friday morning going off at glassy 3-4 foot. Everyone surfed their brains out over three sessions really only coming in to re-fuel before heading back out for more. The following two days saw the swell grow to 5 foot with occasional 6 foot bomb sets and an even better lined up Sultans with less crowds.
Sultans got as good as it gets with a super shreddable outside section where you could throw in a few hacks before rifling into the inside section which provided some really hollow tubes. Everyone scored probably the best waves of our lives and got to meet and share the waves with people from all over the world in the line-up. One of the unbelievable moments was our last session at Sultans, we had the wave all to ourselves in perfect conditions and everyone was just stoked. After that most of us were completely and utterly surfed out. There’s something magical about surfing perfect waves with your closest friends for 11 days straight.
Shortboard, longboard, fish, we managed to ride it all and score just about everyday of the trip. Turns out our new stretch boardies were really popular and everyone gave us really positive feedback. The most positive and popular saying was “no ball rash guaranteed!”
Special thanks to the Perfect Wave and Brian James who really made our trip memorable. The Crew on the Carpe Vita were also a really cool bunch with a really positive vibe. Finally we’d also like to thanks Anko for being our local Maldivian surf guide and all around stoked individual and also Joel Coleman from Saltmotion who took some amazing water shots of our trip!
We really can’t wait to get back to the Maldives for more. There are lots of other spots we want to check out down south where the crowds get even thinner! It’s a must for any surfer at some point in their lives.
Dont forget to check out The Perfect Wave, we'll be going back to them for sure!
www.theperfectwave.com