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Paradise Saved
Seacology rolls out the red carpet for adventure philanthropists
By Jeff Greenwold
Even from 50 feet away, the strange, polka-dotted immensity fills my view. I immediately recognize it as the largest fish in the sea, and it feels as threatening as a Soviet-era dirigible. But whale sharks are actually mild- mannered filter feeders, I remember, unable to eat any- thing much bigger than plankton. They’re also the holy grail for scuba divers—so I kick my fins like a crazed showgirl in a futile attempt to catch up with the enormous creature. After two minutes my air gauge alarm is bleeping, and the contest is over: whale shark 1, diver 0.
Whale sharks are just one of the marvels of the Maldives, a nation of 1,190 coral-fringed islands some 400 miles south- west of Sri Lanka. The warm seas are protected for 200 nautical miles around the atolls, which makes the archipelago one of the world’s premier scuba destinations, chock-full of pristine, seldom-explored reefs. Snorkelers get an eyeful too: Schools of neon-blue fusiliers pulse amid colonies of manta rays, while docile leopard sharks doze in golden corals. But what looks like a perfect paradise is actually a landscape at risk. Islands the world over are in peril from climate change, deforestation, over- fishing, and reef destruction.
The trip I’m on is part of the solution. It’s organized by California-based Seacology (seacology.org), whose motto is “Saving the world, one island at a time,” and my expedition fees include funding for a local development project on Kendhoo, a Maldivian island with fewer than 1,000 inhabitants. Though Seacology has been around since 1991, the company opened its Expedition segment to the public last year, offering journeys to Fiji, Zanzibar, and Papua New Guinea (among other destinations) that were previously limited to board members. Seacology expeditions, like ours to the Mal- dives, combine adventure with philanthropy in top- shelf style.
Our ten days in the Maldives launched from the breezy Four Seasons resort at Kuda Huraa, a place with technicolor sunsets and thatch- roofed, over-water bungalows that had me wondering how I might dodge our departure the next morning. Later, as I listened to a Maldivian jazz combo and looked across an ocean the color of fire opals, I asked the bartender which billionaire owned the magnificent yacht anchored off the hotel pier. When he told me the ship was the Explorer, the 129-foot catamaran that would be our home for the coming week, I laughed out loud. The next morning, as I sipped a cappuccino on the Explorer’s deck and watched the resort recede beyond the horizon, I finally got it: These Seacology people know how to save the world in style.
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