It is here, suspended over water the colour of diluted curaçao, that I find myself doing something I haven’t done since the Y2K bug was a credible threat: riding a bicycle. There is a specific, forgotten terror in wobbling on two wheels when you are older than 30—a kinetic memory that has atrophied under decades of desk work and Grab rides.

Mabin Island, with its 1,400m of lush, frenetic greenery, offers ample runway for such indignities. This is the larger of the two siblings: a sprawling canvas of 38ha where you can lose yourself in banyan groves, or find yourself trying to master a backhand on the padel tennis courts.

It is on the bridge, though, where the magic happens. You pedal past the drop-off, the wind smelling of salt and distant rain, and suddenly the physics resolve. You are flying. Below, the water shifts from turquoise to a bruised, heavy navy—the kind of blue that demands you jump into it.

And we do. We take a boat out to the edge of the atoll, where depth is measured in fathoms rather than metres. Jumping off the prow into the deepest blues isn’t just a recreational activity here; it feels like a baptism. The water is shocking at first, then silky, holding you in that total, womb-like suspension that only the open ocean can provide.

Back on land, the duality of the resort reveals itself. While Mabin offers the kinetic energy of golf courses and extensive gardens, Dheru—the smaller, more intimate island at the other end of the causeway—feels like a deep exhale. It is a fully formed retreat in its own right, just 450m long, yet it offers that rare luxury of choice: whether to engage with the world or retreat from it entirely.

The real theatre, however, is the house reef. They call it a snorkelling area, but that feels like a bureaucratic understatement. It is a hive—a literal, buzzing metropolis of marine and human social activity. I spend three days milling about, taking in the scene on land and in water, drifting over a coral ridge that seems to be hosting a party for every parrotfish and blacktip shark in the Lhaviyani Atoll.

It is chaotic in the most life-affirming way—a place where the boundary between observer and participant dissolves entirely. By the afternoon, the nitrogen narcosis of pure relaxation sets in. I retreat to my villa on the beach, a bolthole that feels less like a hotel room and more like a secret you’ve been entrusted with. The flora here is aggressive in its beauty: banyan trees and screw pines crowd the edges of the sand, offering a seclusion that feels ancient and wild. Silence is broken only by the occasional fruit bat flying from tree to tree. I intend to read.

Instead, I collapse onto a hammock strung between two palms on the stretch of sand fronting Jawakara’s reception area. It is an involuntary surrender. The air is heavy with the scent of wet stone and hibiscus, and the silence is so profound it feels like a physical weight. I fall asleep.

Dinner is a lighter affair. I find myself at the bar, skipping heavy cocktails for a glass of Bella, a non-alcoholic sparkling wine that somehow captures the precise, crisp, yeasty aftertaste of champagne—without the headache. It is the perfect accompaniment to a Maldivian sunset, which performs its nightly melodrama of violets and burnt oranges across the horizon. We could have ventured to Molo Restaurant for Mediterranean fare, or the Hideout for upscale comfort food overlooking the greens, but tonight the simple act of sitting still feels like the ultimate luxury.

Jawakara does not demand that you explore or improve yourself. It asks only that you be present. As I watch the lights of the bridge flicker on, illuminating the path between the islands, I realise that after three glorious nights, all thoughts of work have vanished.

The current, however, pulls us forward. It is soon time to deepen the Crown & Champa Resorts experience—trading the sanctuary of Jawakara for the deeper, infinitely bluer waters of Hurawalhi. The speedboat cuts its engines after a 40-minute dash across the atoll, settling into the rhythm of Bodu Beru drummers beating a welcome on the jetty.

Yet, amidst the percussion, the true unhurried rhythm of the island is set by the figure waiting to greet us. We are welcomed by Hurawalhi’s cluster general manager, Akira Shiota, an Aman veteran formerly of Amankila and Aman Kyoto. It is this sense of low-key calm and graciousness that completes the arrival—a distinctive shift into a world that feels, dare we say it, more grown-up.

My Ocean Villa hovers above a lagoon that mocks the clarity of swimming pools. Inside, the room is a study in restraint, defined by clean lines and earth tones that refuse to compete with the view. I ignore the lagoon momentarily to test the bed. I collapse onto the mattress topper and immediately recognise it. It possesses the exact, impossible density of beds I have slept in from Siem Reap and Ubud to Bangkok—a tactile, just-right sort of spongy ghost I continue to chase. It is a discovery that promises the kind of deep, restorative sleep usually reserved for the innocent or the heavily medicated.

The following morning reveals a detail that elicits a grin. On the counter, flouting industry standard, sit several packets of Hurawalhi-branded drip coffee. Most six-star resorts lazily succumb to the tyranny of Nespresso, offering those aluminium pods of convenience that taste of burnt pennies and require a week-long heavy-metal detox. Hurawalhi demands better. I perform the ritual of the pour-over, watching the grounds bloom, and drink a cup that tastes unmistakably of actual beans—and paradise.

Properly caffeinated, we head for lunch at 5.8. You descend a spiral staircase into a glass tunnel submerged nearly 6m below the Indian Ocean. Daylight filters down from the surface in shifting cathedrals of blue, illuminating a dining room that feels like an inverted aquarium. We sit, buttering warm bread, as a school of blue-striped snapper drifts past the glass, staring in. It is a surreal, faintly macabre theatre: we are eating marine life while being watched by marine life.

I catch the eye of a particularly judgmental parrotfish and wonder what it might say, if fish could talk. “The scallop looks a little overdone,” perhaps? Or something more existential: You know we can see you, right? It is a dining experience that is equal parts culinary theatre and philosophical crisis—breathless and beautiful.

The culinary landscape here is surprisingly diverse for a thin strip of sand in the middle of the ocean. One evening, we bypass formal dining for JFK—short for Junk Food Kitchen—where the resort embraces a high-low mix that feels refreshingly self-aware. On the menu are vegan nachos and cauliflower buffalo wings by the pool, overlooking the Indian Ocean: indulgent, playful comforts that fine dining often forgets. I would have happily lingered on a deckchair for a couple of hours longer. Next time, perhaps.

For sunset, there is Champagne Pavilion, an overwater terrace positioned perfectly for the nightly spectacle, where guests toast the day with canapés and bubbles, absorbing the serenity of an adults-only escape. Later, during a snorkelling excursion with the resort’s resident marine biologist, the focus shifts—from consuming nature to protecting it.

As she speaks passionately about the local green sea turtle population, I arrive at a realisation courtesy of a discreet Google search (I was too embarrassed to ask her directly). For years, I have harboured a secretly hypocritical habit: eating chilled turtle jelly, persuaded by its supposed traditional Chinese medicine benefits. Standing there, studying turtle diagrams on a laminated leaflet, the abstraction of ‘ingredients’ collides with the physical reality of the animal. It is a quiet, devastating reckoning. The jelly was never medicine; it was vanity. I make a silent pact with the turtle: no more. Perhaps I will stick to bird’s nest instead.

An Exception, Not the Rule

One evening, we take a five-minute speedboat ride across the indigo channel to Kudadoo, Hurawalhi’s ultra-exclusive private-island sibling. I almost never write about properties I haven’t actually slept in—it feels akin to reviewing a restaurant after only glancing at the menu. Yet Kudadoo demands an exception. This is a sanctuary designed for grown-ups in pursuit of maximal privacy, where just 15 residences float above aquamarine waters, offering almost monastic seclusion for Hermès-loving hermetic guests.

The catalyst for this breach of protocol is the Himalayan salt meditation room. Within a retreat dedicated to ‘wholeness’, this glowing saline chamber delivers a silence so absolute it feels medicinal. The resort operates on a philosophy of “Anything, Anytime, Anywhere”, a dangerous promise that usually tests the upper limits of logistical sanity. A personal butler stands on constant alert and, while the temptation might be to request a chilled lobster tower on a deserted sandbank or a private yacht to chase dolphins, I find my own desires unexpectedly ascetic.

The residences themselves are vast—300 sq m of tropical chic, complete with expansive overwater decks and 44 sq m infinity pools. Yet amid all this excess, dinner is an exercise in restraint: a truffle-scented thin-crust pizza, executed with the seriousness of a bomb disposal. It arrives blistered, crisp, and flawless—a reminder that true luxury is often simply getting exactly what you want, even if that happens to be good dough and cheese, while floating above a coral reef.

Kudadoo is legendary for making anything under the Maldivian moon available to its guests. Given such boundless generosity, it would be almost impolite not to grant this six-star property a similar courtesy: a prominent place in a narrative that was never meant to include it. Hurawalhi, meanwhile, succeeds in being many things—chic, romantic, visually arresting—but its true power lies in these smaller, corrective gestures. It corrects your sleep. It corrects your caffeine intake. And, if you are paying attention, it may even correct your moral compass.

As I sit on my deck that evening, watching the sun bleed into the Lhaviyani Atoll, I feel entirely recalibrated. The water below is dark and deep, and for the first time in years, I am in no hurry to leave it.