We are people of the sea and we all grow up with the elements around us- Nasheed

President Mohamed Nasheed has said that Maldivains are people of the sea and the people of Maldives “grow up with the elements around us and for us the sea is never very far away from us.”

Speaking at ceremony of the Surfing Champions Trophy 2011 held in Four Seasons resort Maldives at Kuda Huraa, President Nasheed said that the people of Maldives are taught to swim at a tender age and live half of their lives in the sea.

“If you map the life of a fisherman, you will very often find that the fisherman is more often at sea than on land. We have 44% of our workforce in fishing and therefore we have more people on the ocean than we have on land,” he said.

President Nasheed conveyed that he was honoured to meet the world surfing champions, and welcomed them to visit the Maldives again. He also added that Maldivian surfers would be much appreciative of this opportunity to meet them in person.

“There is a whole generation of Maldivians who I am sure worship you and they are honored that you are in this country and I would like to say that you are very, very welcome here and I would like to say please keep coming. I cannot stress more the dedication that you have to put into a sport such as this, very early mornings and continuously looking for it and striving for it and then finally becoming a champion. It’s never a very easy thing to do and I congratulate all those who have taken part and all those who have won. I will not go on and on, but I am sure that we can have a very good evening tonight and I hope that you will come again to the Maldives. As for how many people we want to bring to the Maldives to surf that we have to think about.
I am very often told that if you have more than 10, 15 people in a spot that’s a crowd and people get bored out of it; waiting for a way,” he said.

At the ceremony held onboard Four Seasons Explorer, a luxury catamaran, the President awarded the Grand Champion trophy to the winner.