| Sultans of Surf |
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Page 2 of 7 
This year, the group chose the Maldives, a 500-mile-long string of 1,190 tiny islands created over thousands of years as coral formations slowly grew atop one another. With their powdered sugar sand beaches, swaying palms, and translucent blue waters, the Maldives are almost a cliché of idyllic island paradise. From November to February, scuba divers from around the world flock to the islands to witness the bounty of undersea life. The other half of the year, surfers gather as the archipelago snares powerful southeast swells that break on the shallow coral reefs with machinelike perfection.The island nation has only recently become popular with surfers, but it’s quickly gained renown as one of the best spots in the world for yacht-based wave riding. Currently more than 20 yachts operate in the country. None, however, match the luxury of the ship that Dayton and company have come to surf from, the Ocean Dancer. At $36,000 a week, the boat is the finest surf base plying the swells around the North Male atolls. Besides the private air-conditioned staterooms, each with its own bathroom and plasma screen TV, the yacht features a graceful lounge and mahogany bar, an on-site spa and masseuse, and a staff of 13 to wait on our every need. The ship is also flanked by a pair of tenders: one 52-foot local dhoni, which serves as a floating base camp at the surf breaks during the day, and an inflatable dinghy with an outboard motor for chauffeuring surfers between the mothership, the dhoni, and the waves. The Ocean Dancer, indeed the entire surfing industry, might not even be here if it weren’t for an Australian surfer named Tony Hussein Hinde, who shipwrecked in the Maldives in 1973. Sailing from Sri Lanka to South Africa, Hinde and his friends ran aground at night on a reef 35 miles north of the capital of Male. For nine months he remained in the Maldives working to salvage the boat, all the while noticing the near-perfect waves peeling alongside the tiny islands. Hinde eventually left to continue his travels, but he couldn’t shake the images of Maldivian surf. A year later he returned with his surfboard, and he’s never left. For nearly a decade, Hinde told no one about the Maldives and had the waves to himself. Eventually he invited some buddies from Australia to join him and then started giving private guided surf tours in the 1980s. Though Hinde insisted all who visited keep the secret, a feature article about the Maldives eventually landed in an Australian surf magazine. The word was out and Hinde, in an effort to properly shape the growth of surf tourism, founded Atoll Adventures in 1989 and, eventually, a surf camp called Tari Village Resort (now known as Dhonveli Beach and Spa), on the islet of Kanu Huraa. |
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