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If you’ve come to the Maldives, you’ve come for two things: the talcum beaches and the warm crystalline waters in myriad turquoise hues as far as the eye can see. But now those very waters are threatening to wipe the Indian Ocean archipelago off the map. The Maldivian president recently pleaded the world’s help in halting global warming before his paradise drowns beneath a rapidly swelling sea. The world’s oceans are predicted to rise as much as three feet by century’s end, which would submerge 80 percent of the Maldives and leaving the rest uninhabitable. The cruelest twist, though, is that the island nation accounts for only .01 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Still, the Maldives haven’t set to building an ark yet — they’re too busy building resorts. At least 35 luxury retreats are in the works, including Diva Island Resort and Spa, which opens the first of two phases this month on the atoll of Dhidhoofinolhu, just south of the capital, Male. Diva is the first Maldivian property for Naiade Resorts, better known for its island hideaways in Mauritius, Reunion and the Seychelles — including swanky Desroches, where Prince William rekindled his romance with Kate Middleton. Like Diva’s name suggests, it’s all about the flash: secluded water villas hover over the lagoon, while “beach pool villas” are kitted with private plunge pools and gardens. But it’s in the spa’s over-water treatment rooms where you can best ponder the fate of your pampered paradise: Massages are performed over a glass floor peering right into the sea.
