Baros

All airport transfers should be like this. Having negotiated a queue of three people at passport control, we stroll a few yards from the terminal to a speedboat stocked with a lifetime’s supply of cold flannels. Just 20 minutes later, having cruised past the president’s ‘picnic island’ (they know how to do things properly in the Maldives), we arrive at our palm-fringed atoll.

A Water Villa on the sunset side is our home for the next few days, a conical, thatched overwater pavilion raised on stilts with full-height windows and a deck overlooking the sea. Mrs Smith’s sun-worshipping proclivities kick in immediately, and she disrobes and parks herself on a lounger for the afternoon. Meanwhile, I quickly establish what is to become my favourite activity: marine twitching. I take a particular liking to the Needlefish, which float around in the shallows like miniature javelins. Occasionally, one propels itself out of the water, perhaps to secure a better view of Mrs Smith in her birthday suit.

Mrs Smith has passed into an open-mouthed slumber when I suddenly shake her awake. ‘What’s the matter? Are we sinking?’ she yelps. Swimming magisterially beneath our feet is a manta ray. It pauses for dramatic effect, eyes us lazily, then flaps off to the next-door villa. We speculate whether the creature is in fact a highly trained employee whose schedule is orchestrated by hotel management: ‘Ray, go and do another round of the overwater villas would you?’

After watching the sun go down, we retire to the Lounge at the Lighthouse bar for a pre-dinner cocktail. Nearly everything at Baros is geared towards couples, so the kidney-shaped sofas invite reclining and canoodling. Unfortunately, they also cause Mrs Smith to throw her Cosmopolitan over her Jil Sander dress. Twice. I plump for a Lighthouse Blazer, a potent potion that is ignited by Lucky the barman and arrives smoking hot. As it turns out, the majority of our evening is dedicated to pyrotechnics – in the fine-dining restaurant beneath the bar, we order the lobster soup and the truffle-infused beef fillet, both of which are cooked in front of us with lashings of brandy that cause theatrical balls of fire.

Flip-flopping over to breakfast the following morning, we wander around in a daze trying to decide what to eat (having arrived with every pair of shoes from her wardrobe, Mrs Smith spends the entire stay in the complimentary footwear). In the end I take the pain out of the process by having one of everything – fruit followed by cereal followed by French pastries chased up by Belgian chocolate waffles, fried eggs and tuna sashimi.

Seeking sunloungers for a chill-out session, we enquire at reception about using a pair from one of the unoccupied beachfront rooms. When we arrive at the shoreside villa, it becomes clear that we have been beaten to it. Reclining on one of the loungers is a heron, who shields himself from the midday rays beneath a straw parasol (perhaps he too has enquired at reception). Mrs Smith shoots him an old-fashioned glare, and he stalks off like a bandy-legged David Hasselhoff to resume his fishing duties. We watch him for a while, and conclude that being a heron at Baros is as easy as being a guest. The shallows teem with thousands of fish, which offer themselves up to him like shimmering sacrifices.

Some snorkelling is in order, so we borrow some equipment from the dive centre. You can scuba dive here without any qualifications, but we find that floating on the surface is awe-inspiring enough, like peering into a tank of tropical fish at a pet shop. The joy of Baros is that it has its own house reef, so you need only paddle out a few metres from the beach to see piscatorial specimens of every size in kaleidoscopic colours, as well as little sharks and the occasional turtle.

A sandbank dinner is in the offing for our final evening in the Maldives, which sounds schmaltzy but turns out to be just about the most romantic thing we’ve ever done. We are gently ushered on to a speedboat by no less than four linen-clad members of staff (the ratio of employees to guests at Baros is two to one) and whisked off to a tiny sand bar in the middle of the ocean. Awaiting our arrival are our own personal maître d and chef, who ply us with champagne and barbecued seafood as the sun melts into the horizon. Our only company is a fleet of scuttling sand crabs, their eyes lighting up like little torches in the darkness.