The heavenly realms of the Maldives

“It was as if one were stepping back into a time warp, when surfing was consigned to the pioneering nomads of the sixties and seventies in pursuit of the perfect wave, the path to happiness. The true surfer’s paradise.”

“Jimmy Barnes is a regular to the island and we are planning to continue a series of music events on the island that attract not just surfers, but other Australians.”
– Steve Lanfranco The Perfect Wave

So, for all your surfers out there dreaming of nirvana, let me paint an alluring picture.

You’re in the heart of the Maldives, in a resort, on a perfect right-hand point break that peels along a not-so-razor-sharp reef and ends at the front of a sunset bar serving light refreshments. From where you’d rather be right?

Right. We’re talking nirvana, paradise, heaven, whatever you want to call it. The place mere mortals dream of. A place that symbolises why the Maldives is one of the world’s quintessentially aspirational and exotic bucket-list destinations. It’s the antithesis of Snapper Rocks or Kirra where bliss, joy and perfection are overshadowed by, well – crowds. Where heaven meets hell if you like.

But this is simply just heaven on a stick. Where pumping waves pulse in from southern ocean swells thousands of miles away and hit a plethora of reefs with the beauty and perfection of a picture book. And as if it could get any better, only surfers who enter through the pearly gates of Holiday Inn Kandooma Island Resort as paying customers can surf there.

When I turned up in mid-May, the start of the surf season and when occupancies at the Holiday Inn were relatively low, there were only 22 surfers on the island – many scattered across the multitude of nearby reef breaks on their own journey looking for the perfect wave. You do the math!

I recall one morning, walking hand in hand with my wife past the Sunset Bar to be expectedly greeted by a pulsing 4-5 feet of turquoise perfection – and only one person out, a local Maldivian. Not a drop of water was out of place as the waves cascaded along the reef, nearly every wave unridden. If only one could duplicate oneself. It was as if one were stepping back into a time warp, when surfing was consigned to the pioneering nomads of the sixties and seventies in pursuit of the perfect wave, the path to happiness. The true surfer’s paradise.

This blissful scenario and small crowds, I am told, is a more regular scenario than it is not on Kandooma.

“It really is quite an incredible scenario,” says Steve Lanfranco, who operates the Kandooma office of the Australian-founded and poignantly named The Perfect Wave, which brings surfers to the island throughout the year. “You’ve got perfect waves and so many other activities that just add to the great experience of just coming to the Maldives.

“For many, The Maldives is on their bucket list – but with the support of the Holiday Inn, we’ve been able to make the resort more accessible to more people who might traditionally not come here, or feel it’s too inaccessible. The great thing about Kandooma is it suits everyone – from families to couples to groups of mates coming for a surf trip who want to explore the beauty of the Maldives.”

The Perfect Wave’s partnership with the Holiday Inn has been, well, pretty perfect.
May to October is traditionally the lowest occupancy period for the 150-room resort because it is the ‘off season’. Not for surfers though. This is when the Maldivian atolls – spread for more than 800km in the middle of the Indian Ocean, an hour’s flight southwest of Sri Lanka – come alive.

“The importance of The Perfect Wave to us cannot be under-estimated,” says Mark Eletr, the General Manager of Holiday Inn Resort – Kandooma Maldives, who is overseeing the island’s post-Covid recovery with a major investment program.

“The Maldives has historically been a place that many people couldn’t afford but we’ve been firmly anchored in the mid-market and the surfing community is a big part of that. Now that the borders are open in many countries, people are starting to travel again, but you no longer just put all of your eggs in one basket.

“During Covid, we lost the Aussie surfers and the Chinese travelling market and to a certain extent, the European market. But we are now seeing new customer bases from different markets which is great to see and great for the resort. The Perfect Wave is a very important partnership for us because it allows us to secure greater occupancies during the traditionally slower season when the surf is actually very attractive to surfers.

“Kandooma is very special because only surfers who stay within the resort are permitted to surf here so it’s certainly a very appealing factor for surfers looking for uncrowded waves. But we can’t just forget about all the other activities that Kandooma has to offer that make it a truly incredible place. The snorkelling, the diving and all of the activities here make it a very attractive place for families. We want people to come here and say, ‘that was reasonable value but the experience heightened the value proposition’ and we believe we are achieving that.”

Steve is the perfect person to represent The Perfect Wave. Having become ‘marooned’ on the island during the pandemic, he knows every grain of sand and every piece of coral on Kandooma and the surrounding atolls.

“My partner Courtney and I were stuck here for six months and I was the only surfer on the island,” Steve says, laughing. “It was quite an unbelievable experience. It was an amazing time but it was also one of the most challenging times of our lives because we were stuck here – we were literally marooned and couldn’t get home even if we wanted to. There were no flights we could get onto from the Maldives and even contacting the consulate was useless because we couldn’t get to India or Sri Lanka – every country had blockages.

“So that’s where we just took it in our stride and made the most of it. It was a real mental challenge too. Things were going on in my head like ‘what happens if Mum or Dad get sick’. But we realised we can’t live our lives thinking like that, so we just embraced the situation we were in. Often that meant surfing perfect waves to myself.”

Every surfer’s dream, right?

“Courtney and I also had to set daily goals and sometimes that meant getting out there and sweeping the palm fronds or starting small projects to keep us sane,” Steve says. “It really was an incredible time but truly an incredible place to be marooned.”

Steve says before the pandemic, The Perfect Wave was very much an Australian-centric surf travel company, but the company has since broadened its horizons with global networks.

“More than 70 per cent of our guests before the pandemic were Australian,” he says. “But when the pandemic happened, we didn’t have Australian surfers to rely on because they were unable to travel. Other countries started opening their borders up much sooner, so we had to adjust our strategies to target different markets and we now have agents based all over the world, particularly in the areas that started travelling first.”

Kandooma is a small island located a 40-minute speed boat ride south of the Maldivian capital Male. The islands are blessed with surf, snorkelling and some of the best dive spots in the world, with incredible visibility. Male airport is about four and a half hours by plane from Singapore and an hour flight south of Sri Lanka.

Kandooma is the quintessential tropical island with all the modern facilities of the mid-tier-luxury traveller – characterised by well-appointed villas shaded by tropical palms, and surrounded by white, sandy beaches and a natural lagoon inside the reef for safe snorkelling.

On the northern side of the island is the central resort, which has a restaurant and dining area and bars overlooking a turquoise infinity pool that seemingly cascades into the ocean in front of you. The accommodation is a series of well-maintained and cleanly kept villas overlooking the reef on the north-western side of the island, ranging from single bedrooms to three-bedroom villas for families. The huts feature tropical outdoor showers and bathrooms.

For the ‘bucket list’ traveller, you can stay in lavish, over-the-water villas which sit atop the reef. It’s from here you can laze in the see-through hammock over the reef or watch the reef fish at night as the lights illuminate the reef beneath the villa.

Kandooma Rights was where yours truly and the publisher spent many hours racing along the fast right hand sections as swells pulsed on changing tides while our partners enjoyed visits to the day spa, yoga sessions, S.U.P yoga, snorkelling, sunbaking or simply indulged in the incredible natural beauty (and cocktails) on this pristine island.

Kandooma Rights is the focal point of big plans for the resort, with Mark identifying the area as a natural amphitheatre for people to enjoy a cocktail while watching the surfing on the point.

“We’re currently investing in what is a very under-utilised part of the island in front of the surf break,” he says. “We’re building a lagoon that will be safe for kids inside a break wall and we are also planning to create a sunset bar for people to enjoy the atmosphere and watch the incredible display of surfing that occurs here.”

This is in addition to the existing sunset bar that sits atop the fine dining restaurant where diners can enjoy incredible seafood and cuisines inspired by Asia and the sub-continent.

The Holiday Inn has a sports centre catering for all types of activities which include catamaraning, snorkelling, windsurfing, mono-skiing, wake boarding, parasailing and kayaking. In addition to surfing, one of the island’s key activities is scuba-diving, where divers from all over the world converge to explore the waters with some of the best visibility anywhere in the world. A well-appointed gym and tennis court is located in the centre of the island and an outdoor studio overlooking the ocean provides a perfect backdrop for regular yoga sessions that are offered.

The island is renowned for its Kids’ Club – a treat for couples looking to offload their kids while they traverse their own adventures, scuba-diving or snorkelling around the island’s reefs or taking a myriad of tours which include visits to swim with whale sharks, swimming with sharks, visiting deserted sand islands in the middle of the Indian Ocean or snorkelling a nearby shipwreck.

The local Perfect Wave office makes the surfers’ experience an easy one. As soon as you arrive on the island, surfers are added to a Whatsapp group and given regular updates on surf conditions and advised daily where surf tours will likely be heading the next day.

Other surf breaks nearby include Foxy’s – a razor-sharp left-hander which is for the experienced surfer only – or the more docile Quarters, a right-hander a 40-minute ride from the island and suited for all abilities, with various sections to keep the wave interesting.

The aptly named Riptides is another right-hander 20 minutes from Kandooma that gives the sense that you are surfing in the middle of nowhere – a fun right-hand wave with an easy take-off that winds into a heavier, shallower section as it moves down the reef.

The many boat trips to nearby reefs throughout the day would thin the crowds at Kandooma Right even further.

Night-time entertainment is centred around the main restaurant precinct. Once a week, the local Maldivians put on a cultural dance show in which visitors can participate.

The staff on the resort are a melting pot of cultures, many from nearby Sri Lanka and the sub-Continent, predominantly local Maldivians from nearby islands.

Steve says The Perfect Wave has big plans for Kandooma that revolve around supporting occupancies at the resort but broadening the base of surfers and their families experiencing Kandooma Island.

“Jimmy Barnes is a regular to the island and we are planning to continue a series of music events on the island that attract not just surfers but other Australians,” he says. “This year we’ll have Xavier Rudd playing here and we plan to have a series of other well-known performers in the future.

“We are really only just bouncing back from the pandemic but we are working very hard to establish new markets and maintain a great customer experience. We want feedback, retention of repeat visitors and referrals. A lot of our guests are coming here because a guest told their mate about how good a time they had here. Word of mouth is a very important part of the business.”

Mark re-emphasises the importance of The Perfect Wave to the Holiday Inn.

“Because we have been trading for 30-odd years we are firmly cemented in the mid-tier market, so we get young couples, families and we get the surf market and multi-generational families. It really is a melting pot of international customers and that’s what makes the island and the Kandooma experience so unique. We have 150 rooms and at any given time can have visitors from China, Singapore, India, Sri Lanka, Israel, the US, Europe and Australasia.

“The Perfect Wave is our biggest partner and it is a partnership that we will continue to value and nurture.”

A perfect partnership in a perfect slice of heaven on earth.

The Ocean Road Travel Team flew as a guest of Scoot Airlines, a subsidiary of Singapore Airlines which was voted “World’s Best” long haul low-cost airline in the 2021 Skytrax World Airline Awards; and a guest of Kandooma Holiday Inn Island Resort courtesy of The Perfect Wave.