Maldives

Baa Atoll is the part of the Maldives that stayed quiet. The house is the only structure on its island: eight rooms along a single covered walkway, a shaded deck at the water's edge, and a reef that begins about four metres from the steps. Between May and November manta rays gather at Hanifaru Bay, twenty minutes away by dhoni, in numbers that do not happen anywhere else. Outside that window the diving is still the best of the three houses and the island is emptier. There is a cook. There is no bar, no shop, and no way off the island between boats — which some people find difficult on the first day and nobody mentions by the third.