Why St Regis Maldives Vommuli Resort is perfect for active travellers

I’m not a beach person. I don’t like swimming in the sea. I get bored if there isn’t enough to do. There were plenty of reasons I’d assumed the Maldives wouldn’t be for me – yet here I am, just over 24 hours since touching down in Malé, and I’ve never been happier to be proved wrong.

Because I have been completely won over by its sugar-soft sand, by swimming in sun-warmed water without another soul in sight and, far from bored, I’ve rarely felt so energised. There is some kind of Maldivian magic here that’s revealing sides of myself I have never known.

It’s easy to pinpoint the moment it happened too. Ambling straight from my beach villa at The St Regis Maldives Vommuli Resort into the shallows, sun sparkling across the surface of the water, I abandon my usual preference for a pool and opt for a sea swim instead – and end up basking in my own private lagoon.

The water is calm, the seabed clear and the colours so intense and varied, it’s like swimming in a paint palette from Picasso’s blue period, with every shade more brilliant than the last. I glance back towards the deserted beach when the piercing whistle of a tern draws my gaze. Yet this tiny white bird is not alone. The proud outline of a heron sits on the rocks just off shore, its S-shaped neck, absurdly long legs and sharp, pointed bill perfectly framed against a backdrop of lush greenery and shaded villas.

Treading water, I watch as the ungainly heron launches itself into the air, revealing an impressive wingspan as it soars over fluttering palm tree fronds before settling on the pitched roof of a neighbouring villa, the perfect vantage point to survey its surroundings. This heron doesn’t want to move too far from its sea view and nor, I discover, do I.