A small island, and the reason it stays small
Open since 2012. Fourteen villas, fourteen staff, and no plans for a fifteenth of either.
Why fourteen
The island is four hundred metres long and the lagoon on the eastern side is too shallow for a jetty of any length. Those two facts decided the size of this place before anybody drew a plan.
We could have filled the middle with another twenty rooms and put in a second restaurant, and then we would have been a small version of something you can already get closer to the airport for less money. Instead there are fourteen villas, one kitchen and enough staff that somebody knows your name by the second morning.
Most of the staff come from the two inhabited islands across the channel and go home on the supply boat. That is why the excursion to the inhabited island is guided by somebody who lives there rather than by somebody who read about it.
What we are not is large, lively or cheap. There is no nightlife at all. Guests who come back tend to say the quiet was the point.
The people who run it
Mohamed Naseer
Ran the boatyard on the next island for eleven years before this. Does the ordering and the supply boat, and still meets the ten thirty spee...
Aishath Zeena
Answers the email, holds the villas and is the person who will tell you honestly that the seaplane cannot fly after dark.
Hussain Fayaz
Instructor since 2009 and the reason the dive profiles here are conservative. Knows where the mantas are in season and where they are not.
Fathimath Rishma
Runs one kitchen for fourteen villas, which means she plans a week ahead and remembers every allergy anybody has ever mentioned.
Practical questions
Is there a doctor on the island
No. Two of the staff are trained in first aid and oxygen, and there is a health centre twenty minutes away by boat and a hospital in Malé.
Bring what you normally take. There is no pharmacy here and the supply boat comes once a week.
How good is the wifi
Good enough for messages, email and a video call that you are willing to repeat. It reaches every villa and the restaurant, and it slows down in the evening when everybody is on it.
There is no mobile signal in two of the water villas. If you need to work, the restaurant terrace is the best place on the island for it.
Come and see it
Send your dates and your flight number and we will tell you what is possible.