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General Information ... continued

Resort Islands in Maldives
There are more than 86 resort islands in the Maldives with over 15500 beds.
Probably due to the competition and scarce resources available to develop resort islands, the number of cruise and safari yachts/boats have been increasing recently. These boats offer most of the facilities available in a standard resort island - though they are not as comfortable as a Resort Island with private beaches. However, to compensate the guest there are other advantages when one is on the move - such as exploring different reefs(for divers) and visiting many more islands and enjoying and experiencing the Maldives at closer range than usual resort visitors.
Resort Islands in Maldives are self contained - they have their own power, water, telecommunication, food outlets, transportation, storage and other facilities which are essential to sustain a small town - these facilities are of international standards.
Therefore, the guest has no excess to other Islands for the entire stay unless he/she wishes to take a boat ride to the neighbouring resort/island for some reason.
Resort Transfers
Currently there are two modes of transportation to resort islands. They are by speed boat or by seaplanes. Most of the resorts maintain a fleet of highspeed boats for guest transportation. However, those who wish to reach their choice of the resort island can use the seaplane facilities offered by 3 companies. The biggest is Maldivian Air Taxi which operates numerous seaplane flights to all parts of the tourism zones.

Geography
The Maldives or 'Malodheep' as they are known in Sanskrit which means a garland of islands, lie 600km Southwest of Sri Lanka and 670 Southwest of India, forming the central part of the Lacadives-Chagos Ridge, a submerged volcanic mountain range which stretches 7 degrees north, to just south of the equator. This underwater mountain range creates a chain of 26 atolls, 754km from north to south and 118km from east to west. The archipelago is made up of about 1192 small coral islands, spread over a geographical area of 90,000sq kilometres (including sea) in the Indian Ocean.
The islands that make up the Republic of Maldives are very small - the total area being around 298 square kilometres and Male' the capital island being only 450.6 acres. There are nearly 1000 uninhibited islands, none over 3m above sea level, surrounded by coral reefs. Formed above peaks from the depths of the ocean, upon layers of both dead and living coral and other remains of various marine life, the islands are densely covered with tropical vegetation such as coconut palms.
The unique islands provide visitors with one of the most breathtaking views of underwater life in the world. The protective coral reefs surrounding each island contain over a 1000 species of tropical fish, innumerable varieties of shells and countless shapes and sizes of corals.