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Below us, Kunfunadhoo Island is a comma of coral and palms adrift on an epic sea. The 30-minute trip here from Male has been less a flight than a transcendent experience.

Soneva Fushi Resort on Kunfunadhoo is one of the Maldives' most upmarket retreats. I settle into my beachfront suite and a tough regimen of snorkelling, dining and the contemplation of a good novel. The food is a wonder of the reef - tuna steaks that seem to have leapt straight from sea to plate. At the resort’s spa, a Swedish masseuse has a fair go at untying the Gordian knots of my shoulders. As relaxed as jelly, I then wobble off on a bicycle, along banyan shaded paths, to flop into the sea.

The blue abyss beyond the reef is littered with mug lair fish of every hue. The Maldives are famous for excellent diving, and although many corals were decimated by a warm current in 1997, the deeper reefs are still outstanding. With visibility of up to 30 metres, you’re diving in waters so gin-clear you're tempted to say "Cheers!" and drink it.

The Maldives are a lei of 1192 tiny islands scattered down the Indian Ocean, southwest of Sri Lanka. Not wishing to see their Sunni Moslem culture "go West", its government employed geography to ensure that each resort (some 80 of them) has an island unto itself, as does each Maldivian village - and thus, rarely the twain would meet.

"My job is to go surfing," says Tony Hussein Hinde, an Australian who has bridged that cultural gap. Tony and his surfboard were serendipitously shipwrecked here almost 30 years ago. He now sits in the shade at Tari Village (around 12 km north of Male), a three-star resort boasting an excellent, private, left-hand reef break, watching his guests - mainly Australians - surf their brains loose. "Hardly a sunrise goes by," says Tony, "that I don't thank Allah for that shipwreck."
I paddle into the see-through waves. The coral bottom seems to bend up to meet me. Carving across my first few waves, I have to tear my eyes away from the reef below in order to beat the curl above. Not that I'm complaining.

One doesn't live by surf alone and I must sample a few more islands. First stop is Male (Mah-lay), the capital. Its 60,000 people inhabit a sun-fried grid of coral sand streets, one of the few places where tourists and Maldivians mix freely. There is a newish (1984) golden-domed mosque which you can enter; a more interesting one (1656) which you can't; a museum, and a harbour full of Viking-prowed dhoni boats.
Mid-market Bandos Island, 10 kilometres northeast of Male, is the oldest resort in the Maldives (it was opened in 1973) and, with 225 rooms, also the largest. Japanese divers and English drinkers, not to mention Sri Lankan waiters and Italian aircrews, make this a cosmopolitan and friendly village. I pickle myself in warm water with endless dives off its "home reef", and loiter among the little shoreline bowers that, just wide enough for a sun lounge, are the all-day chapels of numerous sun-worshipping Europeans.

The 100-room Coco Palm Resort on Dunikolu Island is a very new and stylish seraglio. My “villa” sits over its azure lagoon; I can drop straight into the water from its deck, then climb back up into a splash pool. Later, it's a stroll along the beach to the pier, from where a dhoni collects us for sunset fishing - we catch nothing but a great view. Then it's onto a deserted sandy cay for a lavish, bonfire-lit feast where we eat everything but the palm leaf platters. Tomorrow is another island - Australia.

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