Fehivalu Guest House Fourteen rooms on Fuvahmulah, six minutes from the airport and ten from Thoondu

Getting here, and what the weather does to it

Flights move, the boat from the south goes when the sea lets it, and the timetable you found online is a starting point.

The single thing we spend most of our email on is how somebody is getting here and getting away again, so here is the whole picture in one place.

Flights come from Malé most days and take a little under an hour and a half. The timetable changes with the season, aircraft get moved between routes at short notice, and a flight can be brought forward as easily as delayed. Treat any schedule you find on the internet as a rough idea and write to us to check the week you are coming.

The boat from the south is the other way in. It is far cheaper, it takes a few hours, and it runs when the sea allows rather than when a page says it will. In rough weather the harbour simply closes. That is not a failure of anybody's planning, it is the Indian Ocean, and everybody on this island organises their life around it.

What this means for you in practice: do not book a tight connection on the day you fly home internationally. Give yourself a night in Malé. We will tell you honestly when a plan is too tight, even when saying so costs us the extra night.

Whichever way you arrive, send us the flight number or the name of the boat. Somebody will be at the airport or the harbour, at any hour, and there is no charge for it.