Gone fishing? All the way to the marvellous Maldives

DAWN was once the end of an evening out, but those wild days are long gone. I now call myself an early riser; not usually this early. Sunrise, may we introduce you again? The first glimmers silhouette a fleet of Maldivian clouds as I’m sprung from my villa at what even heathens call an ungodly hour. There’s coffee at the jetty, which barely tackles my bleariness.

Avoiding its razor-sharp teeth, I watched as the iridescent blue of its scales faded within minutes

Destination? Out there among the Indian Ocean’s relentless surges. Hunting big game fish. Sangeli is a small island at the north-western tip of the Malé atoll, home to the Oblu Select Sangeli resort, which offers game fishing as a private add-on. You need an early start if you’re serious about hauling in a prize specimen. I can only dream of barracuda, big tuna or the fearsome giant trevally. What awaits me out there is one of the most exciting moments of my life.

Our boat, the Sonola, slips out beyond One Banyan Island’s honeymoon villas with their snoozing (or otherwise) couples and I start to worry what I’ve let myself in for. The last time I went deep sea fishing was off the Florida Keys back in the Nineties. In a charter boat with a mechanical crane-like rod. We took turns to be strapped in. The guy in front of me tussled for 20 minutes before hauling in a 13kg mahi-mahi, the stress causing his palms to bleed. Obviously rattled, I was let off lightly thanks to my more meagre catch.

This Maldives expedition felt altogether more free-form. Just me, my pal Euan, our captain Jambe and his crew, Jo and JD, locals with more than their fair share of ‘sea legs’. Our four-hour expedition was organised by TGI, who run the dive and water sports franchise at Oblu Select. You couldn’t be in better hands. TGI’s founder Giuseppe d’Amato is a legend after 40 years in these parts. Back in the Eighties his command of his native language was an asset for Italian tour operators seeking a diving instructor for their customers and he has never left. 

If ‘Thank God It’s Friday’ is the acronym for the global restaurant group, TGI in the Maldives stood originally for ‘Tropical Gangsters Incorporated’ after, says Giuseppe, “A client told us that we were gangsters because he had to pay a dollar more for a meal.” The jokey name stuck.

These days Giuseppe leaves the scuba diving instruction to his team across several resorts. The big game fishing is a bright new TGI excursion project, going with the flow as resorts seek fresh adventures to lure potential clients.

‘Fresh’  certainly sums up 5am, ploughing a lone furrow into the semi-darkness. The previous day’s Oblu Select fishing trip had not prepared me for this. That had been a sedate, sunset chug offshore, family-friendly – as long as the kids aren’t squeamish about flapping fish being landed on deck. We spent an hour rope fishing, a morsel of bait on a hook dropped over the side of our boat. 

Quiet for a while then things began to get interesting when a large group of nurse sharks showed up. Not naturally gregarious, were they gathering to snatch our catch? Wary of snagging my line on a shark fin, I proudly caught a colourful rainbow runner, whose tasty flesh provided us with fish tacos that evening in the main all-inclusive Courtyard dining room.

Expectations for something more substantial for dinner the following night accompanied the Sonola as we swept out beyond the atoll into uncharted waters (for me at least). The heart beat faster when we encountered a shoal of some 40 yellowfin tuna on our starboard bow. Captain Jambe (given name Zamuath Adnan) danced along  the heaving prow, fly fishing for the leaping creatures as I clung onto a rail.

I later caught my own personal yellowfin by the less demonstrative fishing method called jigging. The technique gets its name from a piece of equipment you’ll use, known as a jig. Such artificial lures are designed to resemble small fish that the target species would normally feed on. On your line you jig it up and down to give the impression the ‘bait fish’ is struggling.

Eureka! By some odd seaworthy serendipity I got the hang of it big time when the line went taut and, with a hand from my shipmates, I strained to reel in the ‘monster’ on the end. When a wahoo emerged to squirm frantically on the deck I felt a mixture of elation and nausea. Avoiding its razor-sharp teeth, I watched as the iridescent blue of its scales faded within minutes and it went rigid. 

Back in harbour my trophy fish weighed in at over 9kg, small fry compared with the record 170ft and 80kg recorded for a giant trevally. Well, you have to start somewhere and, tee-shirt reeking, I could at least hold my catch high for the obligatory photos.

That night, in the resort’s Just Grill restaurant the yellowfin was transformed into a huge fan of sashimi to share and chef had also grilled tranches of wahoo in banana leaves. Lunch after the fishing trip had been pan-Asian style in the neighbouring Just Wok – dim sum, crab soup with truffle, kung pao chicken.

Both upmarket restaurants  are located on the outlying, adults-only One Banyan Island, where I also spent the afternoon being pampered at the ELENA  spa, praying I had showered off all that morning’s fishiness. Following Atmosphere’s enlightened environmental policies the spa sources 70 per cent of its products locally, all totally organic. There are certainly no air miles involved in the Veli Bond’dli (Maldivian Sand Bundle Massage) – an age old healing practice which uses a warm sand-filled pouch to reduce body stress.

Not everything is so rudimentary at what is arguably the best spa in the Maldives with its six state of the art double treatment rooms, a yoga pavilion, and a steam and sauna area. Feeling suitably rejuvenated after my own treatment, I relaxed with a green tea and a view of the turquoise lagoon, while mugging up on Oblu’s sustainable ethos. ‘Bamboo for Climate Change Mitigation’ might sound a mite worthy but the donation of bamboo seedlings across 27 islands is a positive promotion of a plant known for its exceptional carbon absorption rate,

Atmosphere have also tripled the contribution of solar energy to their energy mix, prevented 2.4 million plastic bottles from ending up in landfills, and planted thousands of coral fragments to support marine life.

Pleasure with a conscience then. In the Sangs main pool bar before dinner it was good to see the resort’s resident marine biologists giving a presentation on protecting the coral reefs and the indigenous turtle population. The team create wristbands and other souvenirs, using fragments of ‘ghost nets’. These are fishing nets that have been lost or abandoned. Each year they are responsible for trapping and killing a significant number of marine animals, from dolphins to sharks to sea turtles, even devastating coral reefs. The big Indian Ocean tides sweep them into the waters around The Maldives. Even in paradise, you are never far from man’s ability to wreak havoc. 

My unforgettable fishing day began with that rare glimpse of sunrise. It seemed right to toast it with a sundowner. The perfect place on Sangeli is the self-styled sunset bar (open 5pm-7pm naturally) called The Rock. It’s on stilts in a shallow lagoon at the western edge of the island. Clamber up for the best views or, if you can’t secure the traditional wooden swing below, grab a bean bag and a beer… and tell tall fish tales like the Old Man of the Sea.