Lisbon airport, so after yesterday's surf lesson, it's of to the Maldives today with a very excited crew and we are off flying over Portugal into Spain

woauw, check it out, dam on top of mountain ? this is looking familiar, yes, it is Gandia, half way between Javea and Valencia and yes, there we have it, the distintive mountain Montgo de Toscamar and Javea woauw, looks so small from up here, can see the main beach, and the area my parents live leaving Sapin behind oh, but first the Island Sant Francesc de Formentera that sits alongside Ibiza ( can't see Ibiza as we are right over it ) looks like we won;t be getting many more photos now we did fly along the coastline of Algeria and Libya, so I got to see some of it , but too dark to take any photos we landed at Dubai at 4 in the morning, so now, 5 hours later ready to take of to our destination, the Maldives, exciting, never been Sharjah, just suburbs north of Dubai group of man made islands of Jumeirah, Dubai, which will look like a map of the earth once done, so if youhave the money, you can literally buy a country as an island aaah, Dubai Jumeirah beach and the famous Burj Al Arab outer suburbs of Dubai crazy how much development goes on here sand dunes turned into mini cities, complete with high rise building and villa's with lush green grass and another sub divisionm ready to go but looks like some time has passed between asphalt and first brick road to Oman near Hatta coast of Oman flying over the Arabian sea for a few hours and then we should be there and yes, after a few hours first Atoll sighting woauw, Atolls everywhere, and the colours amazing even in overcast and rain wonder if that's our boat for the week fast forward landing, customs control, baggage collection, meeting Jacqui ( yes, she flew over from Sydney day before and met us at airport ) buy sim card and now we are on our Dhoni boat to meet up with our boat for the week everyone is excited to get onto our boat, but we are all also very tired, the anticipation is keeping us awake and there she is clouds start to break up in time for our first sunset, we were all a bit dampened by the arriving in a downpour of rain, wondering if we would see any sun on this trip, but this sunset is a promising sign